The Court Conspiracy
by JubileePretentiousName
Summary: "I confess that I am afraid, dear sister. I confess that, should I fail, countless will die by my hand. By my doing, my choice. Oh how I wish upon gentler times, when you were here with me now. I find myself in the midst of a plot to usurp me, and I fear this court conspiracy might be the end of us all."
1. Chapter 1

**This is gonna be a big'un.**

 **I present to you book one of my Imperium series, The Court Conspiracy, written by yours truly, edited by kramer53.**

 **Theme: November by Max Richter**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing**

 **. . .**

 _ **IMPERIUM**_

 _ **Book I**_

 _ **THE COURT CONSPIRACY**_

 **PART I**

 _Wisps of Rebellion_

 **Chapter I**

" _All manners of frightful monstrosities live within the Blightlands. It is a wonder those who dwell there have raised an entire civilization from its rocks. They must have gained the favor of some forgotten mountain god, I suppose." - Eugenides, royal scholar of Her Grace's Court_

…

 **Ash fell from the sky.**

High Queen Elsa frowned faintly and turned her face skyward as an flake of ash touched her cheek. Nix, her magnificent snow-white mare, cantered in place, snorting with unease. A servant on horseback neared and held a fanciful parasol to protect his High Queen from the soot, who spared the servant no heed; if she had wanted protection from the ash, Elsa would have commanded it.

Around her, Elsa's soldiers shifted their footing in discomfort. They were men of the north, where snow fell as often as ash fell here, in the Blightlands, a scar of desolate terrain near uninhabitable by any humans. In the distance, Elsa could see geysers spew fountains of hot steam from rocky crevasses in the barren earth. Further beyond hunched the Ashpeaks, scorching mountains that spat molten rock and flakes of black soot.

General Thorleif, who sat on his own brown stallion to Her Grace's left, rose a spyglass to his eye.

"Any sign of them?" Elsa's striking teal eyes scanned the smoking land as she squeezed the reigns. The terrible heat of this place leached at the Winter in her veins, and she was finding that sitting straight was beginning to require effort. She pondered on how her soldiers felt, clad in thick leathers and heavy plates of armor.

"Nothing, Your Grace." The General spoke in a tone sharp and formal, like the black and silver uniform he wore.

Just as he finished speaking, however, a faint thumping came to them. Carried by the scorching breeze, the beating of drums resounded against the perilous Blightland hills. Across the plateau, the Blightlander army rose from the valley.

They were not evenly split into battalions like the Imperial Militia. Rather, the Blightland army simply stood at stoic attention in any which position they chose, scattered and seemingly without order.

"He's there," Elsa whispered, "I know he is."

In answer, General Thorleif rose the spyglass again to his eye, "Ashlord Malekith. Man's built like a damn bear." He continued to peer through the glass, "Five hundred strong at most. A small force, can't be all of them."

Elsa knew otherwise. This was the entire Blightland army, a legendary force small in numbers, but unmatched in strength and brutality.

Her military, in contrast, even this fraction of it, was truly an impressive sight to behold. The pikemen stood at the front, protecting the spearmen and archers, all of whom stood at perfect attention. The only men who had horses were the officers and commanders, dressed in black uniforms trimmed in silver with slender swords at their hips. Bannermen stood before each battalion, Imperium's insignia flapping in the hot gusts: a wreath of snowflakes before a black backdrop. Every two dozen feet the front lines had parted to admit space for brass cannons: fairly modern machinations of war.

Ten thousand men, a hundred every battalion, a hundred battalions. Small enough to be mobile, and just large enough to be daunting. Perfect size for the journey made from the north. Such a long, long journey.

"A rider is breaking from the army." General Thorleif checked the spyglass. "It's Malekith."

"As we agreed," mused Elsa, "a Blight doing as he's told. The stars must have aligned."

"I still do not believe this is wise, Your Grace," Thorleif stopped to look at the High Queen.

She was not a tall woman, but upon that splendid mare she seemed to tower above all else, as though the horse was her throne. Her snowy hair, so often trapped in neat buns, was then bound in an unkempt braid. Unlike her military, Her Grace was not clad for war. Rather, a dress clung to her body, dark and silver and elegant. By some magic it was untouched by the fire and smoke of the Blightlands.

From as south as Corona and the Southern Isles to as north as Arendelle and the North Beacons, word of High Queen Elsa's command over Winter had spread like Winter itself. Whether it be true or not, few outside Arendelle were inclined to believe. As for Thorleif, he had seen it with his own two eyes.

He would follow that woman to the ends of the earth, for reasons more than duty.

"Which isn't wise?" She turned her head to look at him for the first time since he joined her side on this desolate plateau. "Negotiating peace with a warlord, or letting war burn my people?"

She dug her heels into Nix's sides and the mare threw back her head, shook her mane, and started forth. Thorleif watched the mare go, a speck of white amid the filth. Elsa's servant sat there on his own horse, parasol held out awkwardly as though the High Queen had never left.

The General watched her go for a lingering moment, then turned his horse so that it rode across the ranks of the Imperium Military.

"Hear me, officers of Imperium!"

The officers snapped to attention.

"No arrows will be notched, no cannons will be lit! As Her Grace High Queen Elsa rides to meet Malekith, we will bare no arms!"

The officers relayed these orders to the captains of their platoons. It took an entirety of 5 minutes for the order to spread. The military force was rippling with perplexity, but they would obey.

Elsa rode across the plateau. Nix did not gallop at her full speed, for the stones underhoof were jagged and treacherous. If she broke a hoof, she'd collapse and send her mistress falling to her death.

In the distance, nearing rapidly, was the Ashlord of the Blightlands. He rode upon a large serpentine lizard, lower than a horse. It's head resembled a cross between a lizard and a snake, and its tongue flicked eagerly as it caught Nix's scent carried by the breeze.

The feared varda dragons. Not true dragons, of course, but a subspecies. Tales have it that they eat the horses of riders, that their barbed tails inject paralyzing poison, and that those wide, hideous mouths spit skin-boiling acid. This was but one of the many monstrous creatures that roam these hellish plains. Superstitious folk believed that the Ashpeaks are where demons are birthed.

Nix slowed to a trot, then stopped. They were roughly one hundred feet from Malekith and his varda, and she refused to approach the lizard any closer. Elsa patted the mare's side, eyes on the large figure dismantling the varda, and swung herself from Nix's back.

The ground was uneven in some places, sharp rocks sticking out here and there. Elsa recalled a tale her father told her as she approached Malekith. A man who fell in love with a Blightland girl, whose father would only deem him worthy if the young man crossed the plateau barefoot.

Some say the geysers melted him to nothing. Others say the earth opened up for the man to be swallowed whole by the Blight goddess that lived under the earth's crust.

She always hated that story.

They were close enough now for Elsa to distinguish features of the Ashlord. He was massive, far above 6 feet, his shoulders wide as a grizzly bear's. He wore a scaled cloak which fell over one arm, the other bare and rippled with muscle. His beard was black and tangled, eyes dark and severe, his hair trapped in dozens of braids that fell over his scarred shoulders.

Malekith was a true Blightlander, immovable and harsh.

Twenty feet.

High Queen Elsa rose both her hands and stretched out her fingers. The winter under her skin was not as forthcoming here in this fiery land, but she had ten years of training and focus. The winter would respond.

Her Winter spilled forth, twirling and spinning in intricate patterns until a the crude shape of a table, made entirely from ice, rose from the ground. Two icy chairs joined the table at opposite sides.

Malekith stopped several paces away. When the light first poured from her fingertips, he had assumed an ambush, his hand gripping the leatherbound haft of the two-faced axe tucked in his belt. He rose both eyebrows at the table, gaze shifting from the ice to the petite High Queen who presented it. Elsa sat herself down, perfectly comfortable, and delicately crossed one slender leg over the other.

Malekith stopped behind the chair at the other side, eyes hard in scrutiny.

"Come sit, Ashlord," Elsa ushered him forth, "I have beverages."

She whistled and Nix hesitantly neared. The varda's vertical pupils expanded in hunger, and its forked tongue flicked, but it made no move for the mare. Elsa retrieved from the saddlebags a small pouch of smaller teabags and a jar of honey.

"Chai, peppermint, or ginger?" She sifted through the bag, voice dainty as though she were attending a tea party among prim ladies.

No hint of an answer from Malekith.

"I think ginger has a pleasant tang to it," Elsa plucked two tea bags out, "A shame I didn't think to bring squeezed lemon. Honey?"

The Ashlord said nothing.

Two little teacups sprouted from the table's surface, filled with water. Ten years ago, turning ice to cold water would have been an impossible feat. But a decade of practice, accompanied by the Blightland's heat, made the task simple. The ice holding the water remained strong. The hot air would not melt it unless the High Queen deemed it so.

Elsa plopped a teabag in each cup, stirring honey into the mix with an ice spoon that appeared between her fingers. "I hope you like your tea cold, Ashlord." With a polite smile, she leaned over and set his teacup back in its place. As she did so, the crude table shed its frost, revealing underneath something elaborate and flamboyant in its design. Malekith visibly hesitated before finally lowering himself into his comically small chair.

 _Mh,_ mused the High Queen, head tilting very slightly, _Perhaps I should've made it larger._

If it were made from wood, the chair would undoubtedly have splintered beneath Malekith's weight. Elsa's teal eyes finally met Malekith's black orbs. She sipped her tea.

Malekith took the little cup between two sausage fingers, shockingly gentle, and hesitated before he sniffed it.

"It's not poisoned," Elsa prompted.

The Ashlord held the teacup aloft, and the varda instantly darted forth. Nix snorted and cantered back, and Elsa fought every primal urge in her bones and muscles to run. The varda's slitted nostrils flared as it took a long whiff of the tea. A strange and guttural gurgle of disinterest rose from the creature's throat, and it wandered back to its spot.

"Northerner's stomachs," his voice was deep and husky as he downed all the tea in one gulp, "so small."

Elsa's brow arched at that, recalling the time she had been invited to a Highlander longhouse for a feast, whose warriors and shield maidens inhaled mountains of fish and venison at a manic pace.

"Blightlanders must require an entire dragon to feast on before noon."

She instantly regretted having let her tongue loose. The Ashlord had become incredibly still, his hands upon the cold table top, eyes never leaving hers. There was a primal fire behind those dark spheres. Should he attack her here and now, Elsa would have no choice but to defend herself, and possibly kill him. That would start a war. A war she did not need.

A moment passed. "Hm," he murmured, his face easing its severity as he leaned a fraction back. He wasn't enraged. Malekith was _amused._ That was likely to be the closest he could ever get to laughter.

"I have done as agreed, _Nustaverdn,"_ his accent was strange and thick, "See with your eyes," he gestured about, "No men with me."

"And none with _me_ ," Elsa replied immediately, eager to begin negotiations. "We have both stayed true to our word. Shall we begin the dilemma we have at hand?"

"Yes."

Elsa leaned forward slightly. "King Eddis of Attolia has come to me with reports of your spies lurking at the outskirts of his farmlands. For the security of his people, I have allowed him to double the ranks of his farmland guard."

"My people hunger," the Ashlord did not raise his voice, "They thirst. The past five _Uudn_ have not been kind to the Vhagn. My sons weaken, my wives are thin."

"You believe your people's time in the Blightlands have come to an end," the High Queen sipped her tea, "I daresay I am surprised, Ashlord. Your people seem to have a traditional and… obstinate quality about them."

"The climb has not been smooth," conceded Malekith, "Yet here I am, speaking your tongue."

 _A Blightland Ashlord with an eye for progress_. She finished her tea. _This makes the dreaded heat almost worth it._

"And you speak it well," Elsa complimented. Perhaps commendation would loosen those massive shoulders.

"I cannot say the same for my people," Malekith was unmoved by her bouquet, "They are…" he searched for the word, "...hesitant to join me. The _Nrushtrastn_ is all that they know. All that _I_ know. They fear that in leaving what you call the Blight, they abandon our goddess."

"And you?"

"Atha is no longer lost to the _Nrushtrastn_ ," Malekith touched two fingers over his heart, "She lives now in my people."

The High Queen was not a religious woman, which was left unknown. The kingdoms of Imperium, however, were deeply polylithic. So much so that a pagan priestess sits at her court table, who is believed to have consorted with druids. No, Elsa followed no god nor goddess, but she respected those who did. Faith was not foolish.

"And now," Malekith continued, "She leads us to the soft soil."

"Perhaps she does, Ashlord," the High Queen rose her chin, "I have come to you with a proposition."

He gave no audible answer. In the distance, a geyser shot seering steam into the air, as though the Blightland itself prompted Elsa.

"I cannot risk a war between Attolia and your people. King Eddis is young and foolhardy. He sits upon his throne like a printer's apprentice." The High Queen held Malekith's steady gaze, "You're overpopulated, and you wish to colonize. My Imperium's reach is far and wide, the largest ring of kingdoms and queendoms in all known history-"

" _Urgish eghn mul,"_ for the first time since their meeting, anger split Malekith's face, "You wish the Vhagn to swear loyalty to your empire." He didn't shout, but his voice was tinged with a trembling rumble.

Elsa did not hasten to reply. Very much unlike her little sister, she had a keen mind for diplomacy. The Ashlord was not a fool, but long and silver-spun sentences deviating around truths and constructing white lies (as was the common tongue of politics) would not bode well. The Blightlanders favored candor, so candor she would give.

"You yourself have said that your people, the Vhagn, hunger. My people have known nothing but full bellies. Your people thirst. My rivers are long and winding. I am gifting you mercy from a frightful future."

"The Vhagn do not require mercy."

"Your people are dying, Ashlord. Your numbers have dropped significantly over the last five years. Swear loyalty to my crown and you will have land! You will have rivers!"

"The Vhagn have always been free."

" _Ashlord Malekith,"_ High Queen Elsa stood then quite sharply, and for the first time in all the ages, the Blight grew cold.

The chilling breezes wafted over both armies, and the air above them essentially buzzed with alarm. Elsa's dress flapped in the gusts, her hair tumbling and flipping. It was not an attack. Clear as ice, it was a command for absolute respect.

A few seconds passed before she let the cold subside, the Blightland's natural temperature returning. Gradually, she lowered herself back down into the chair. Malekith watched, his initial expression of alarm changing to that of something unreadable.

"What do you wish to gain with my loyalty?" Malekith asked.

Elsa stood again with breeze-like grace, ignoring the ash that fell from her platinum-blonde locks. "Peace, Ashlord Malekith."

Malekith took this in, and slowly began to nod.

"Peace… and protection."

The Ashlord stopped at this, quirking his head in inquiry.

Elsa dusted off her skirts. "Your warriors are the most formidable the world has ever known. Should you weld to my Imperium, you will assign twenty men to vow themselves as my royal guard. And you will name one champion who will become the captain of my Palace Guard. In return, I offer safe travels, bountiful supplies, and peace."

The High Queen found that she was holding her breath as she awaited a response from the stoic Ashlord of the Vhagn. The future of her Imperium then rested in this man's tombstone-sized hands. Either war would be declared, and with that, death, or Malekith would set aside his pride, and bring respite to his people at long last.

"You have two days," Elsa said, turning to her mare, "Two days, and I return to my home."

"Men of the Blight do not wait so long."

The High Queen stopped, facing Malekith. "Oh?"

The Ashlord of the Vhagn stood to his full height. If the sun were at his back, his shadow would have engulfed the petite empress.

"I have a… proposition of my own, High Queen of far and wide reaching Imperium." From his belt he drew his double-bladed battleaxe and with a heavy grunt, he drove it into the surface of her ice table.

" _Aghn ker._ " Malekith rumbled.

Elsa stared at the blade for an instant, hairline fractures splitting the face of the table top. With a nudge of will, the table melted, and the Ashlord's blade clattered to the stony earth.

 **. . .**

" _Aghn ker_... he challenged you to a duel, Your Grace." Eugenides, the scholar of Her Grace's Court, leaned over his notes. He was an elderly man, his face long and gaunt much like the rest of his body, and his hair silver hair was short, thick, and curly. Rather unusual for a man his age. Nobody truly knew how old he was, just that he was indeed quite long-living.

Elsa's eyes became distant with thought, her slender forefinger tapping at her bottom lip. She had suspected what he said was the case.

Eugenides the Scholar, General Thorleif, and Commanding Officer Aeris all stood inside the High Command tent. The Imperial Militia had half-way set up camp, soldiers outside the tent chatting amongst themselves as they ate and rested. Topic of the day, of course: the Vhagn

"Me?" Elsa was the only one seated, resting cross-legged in a gorgeous mahogany chair. While one finger tapped her lip, the other tapped the end of her armrest. "That is rather unorthodox."

"He means to kill you." General Thorleif had worn that scowl for the past fifteen minutes. "Do not take the duel, Your Grace."

The High Queen turned her head to Thorleif, who still hadn't recognized his error.

"Was that an order, General?" Elsa inquired, voice perilously sweet. She had stopped tapping her fingers.

General Thorleif halted in his pacing, ears growing red. "A request, Your Grace," he responded after a lengthy pause. "Forgive me."

She studied him for a moment, the war tent perfectly silent, but then resumed her thoughtless ministrations. "I do not share his culture. Why am I required to respond?"

"Forgive me, Your Grace," began Eugenides, inciting a fleeting eye-roll from the High Queen, "But I do believe that accepting his _Aghn ker_ is the wisest decision to be made here."

"Pig-wash," General Thorleif interjected, "Send me! Send an officer, many of them are duelists."

"For sport," muttered Aeris. She was a tall, brown-haired woman, plain of face and broad of shoulders. Unlike the uniformed General, she wore a combination of leathers and dark-plated armor, a broadsword sheathed at her hip.

"To kill me would provoke war with Imperium," Elsa said almost absently, "Malekith is no fool. He's a king of warlords, and has remained such for forty-seven years."

"May I interlope, Your Grace?" Eugenides closed his notebook, addressing the High Queen.

"If you have an answer for me."

" _Aghn ker_ is a sacred writ of political power. If a lowly foot soldier invokes the _Aghn ker_ upon his _Rhakshasa_ , Ashlord, and wins, he takes the Ashlord's position, and the Ashlord becomes a foot soldier. That is the most common use of the duel."

"And where might you be going with this?" General Thorleif, a man weathered by so many words that said so little, heaved a long sigh.

" _Aghn ker_ has laws and sublaws, Your Grace. It's actually quite complex." As he spoke, Eugenides scrambled over a stack of books set aside in the tent's corner and flung open a fresh volume. Elsa caught his name engraved on the book's spine. "'The triumphant may do to the defeated whatever they like. The defeated must bend to the champion's will, or his honor will be tainted. Though death is often the result."

"The duel will decide whether or not Malekith goes to war or joins the Imperium." Elsa leaned back in her chair. A part of her knew this already, it made perfect sense, but she dared not make assumptions on the matter. Clarity, even if it came so little often, was refreshing.

Nobody else spoke for the moments that ensued. They could tangibly feel how deep in thought their High Queen was.

"He never gave me a time."

"Ah," Eugenides's nimble fingers thumbed a few pages, "An eccentric tradition. The challenger is required to stand in place until the duel begins. To meditate on their goddess, Atha."

Elsa blinked. "He's been standing in place this whole time?" It's been a little over forty minutes since she had returned to her military force.

"Almost definitely," confirmed Eugenides.

"He's a madman," breathed General Thorleif.

"On the contrary," Eugenides rose a skeletal finger, "Granting the challenger a long wait is considered a compliment. This gives more time for the challenger to meditate on his goddess."

"He's a madman," Thorleif pointedly repeated.

The stout man was beginning to test Elsa's patience today. Or perhaps it was this dreaded heat. Or the hard ground. The journey had been strenuous, and the day was sluggish and grueling.

 _Spoiled brat,_ Elsa cursed herself, inwardly scowling.

"I do believe this _Aghn ker_ doubles as a sort of… test." Eugenides pondered. "As you know, Your Grace, the Vhagn respect strength and power above all else." He met her eyes for a moment. "Why should they swear fealty to a ruler who cannot fight?"

A moment to digest. Two moments.

"Very well," the High Queen rose, flattening the wrinkles in her skirts. "Let's get this over with."

" _My_ Queen." If General Thorleif hadn't known better, he'd have snatched Elsa's wrist in protest. But he needn't, for she faced him, brow arched.

"I implore that you send a champion," he said, keeping his manner formal as possible, "You are the High Ruler of the wealthiest empire in the world. Upon your death there would be utter chaos."

"Do you doubt my abilities, General?" Aglint of wry amusement flickered behind her bright blue orbs.

"No, Your Grace." Thorleif was cautious not to stray over unwise words. "I say that the risk is simply too great."

"Eugenides," the High Queen addressed her scholar, who hadn't been paying any attention at all to Thorleif's pleas. He blinked from a reverie, and he ceased the absent-minded picking of the frayed ends of his book.

"Hm? Yes Your Grace?"

"What might happen should I send my own champion in the _Aghn ker_?"

"Oh I believe that such an insult is insurmountable in Vhaggish culture, Your Grace." The elderly man rubbed his nose. "You should know that the Vhagn are an incredibly direct people. To handle your business passively through another, mmmmmh." He clicked his tongue. "Cowards are burned like witches."

"This is the only way," Elsa concluded. She turned to make her leave, but was yet again stopped by her general.

"It's not," the stout man straightened his already impressively erect spine, "We could march against the Blights. Show them the strength and power of Imperium. Our forces are twenty times the size of theirs. It would be like schooling a runt."

At that, High Queen Elsa turned to the general with a briskness that would terrify any man, "Hellbent on war, are you?"

"Just stating my viewpoint, Your Grace," General Thorleif was forced to avoid those eyes.

"Henceforth, idiotic viewpoints will be swallowed," Elsa said. Her glare was unchallenged by the General, and so her eyes shifted passed him to the towering Commanding Officer Aeris, who stood in place with an air of indifference.

"You have been typically silent, Commanding Officer. What say you?"

Aeris seemed to roll the question about in her mind for a bit, hand resting on the pommel of her sheathed broadsword.

"Go for the legs, Your Grace."

Thorleif sputtered in befuddled indignation, but Elsa fought a smile. It had been the first time she had heard the Commanding Officer's voice in years, forgetting how closely it resembled a lioness's low purr.

"Sound advice, Commanding Officer Aeris."

 **. . .**

So still did the Ashlord stand that he resembled some stoic statue, carved crudely from stone.

"You accept, then," it was not a question he addressed her with.

Elsa had arrived in the same attire as before, a midnight-blue dress, bejeweled at the corset and skirts by star-like diamonds. Certainly not the attire for a warrior. Or for a traveler.

"How do you know?" She dismounted Nix and shooed the mare further away, clear of danger. The varda was nowhere to be seen.

"You would have not returned, _Nustaverdn_." The corners of those dark eyes crinkled.

 _Like a black-bearded and bearish St. Nicholas,_ mused Elsa.

"I have studied the laws of your _Aghn ker_ ," she said, "and I recognize that war may very well come out the other side."

The Ashlord shrugged his gargantuan shoulders. "Atha will guide the champion's blade to victory. She may favor me, she may favor you. Her ways are _skaad_ to us. If Atha wants war, there will be war. If she wants me to bow to the far and wide reaching Imperium, I will."

Elsa could use such faith.

The axe she had cast to the ground was lifted by the Ashlord. She watched the dark blade glint in the daylight, her heart skipping in anxiety of a fight.

"You have come unarmed," Malekith remarked, spinning the weapon in his palm.

"I am never unarmed, Malekith," Elsa's smile was sweet, then she summoned the Winter.

A sword wouldn't do. Her opponent had the advantage of height and strength. A spear, then. Holding out both hands, amid the swirling blue light, a haft grew. At the end of the haft sprouted the keen tip of a spear. Her dress transformed, a slit running up her skirt to reveal an armored leg. Her right arm became entirely encased in ice places, and in her left hand, a round shield grew from her fingertips. The subtle circlet she wore around her brow expanded and warped until she wore a winged helmet. All armor and weapons were made entirely from ice.

It took a noticeable effort for Malekith to not gawk. To him she must have resembled some goddess of war and winter, although she would not have been pleased at all if he had told her such.

With a dancer's elegance, Elsa twirled her spear between deft fingers. She had trained for a decade under the renowned sworddancer Tulio Luccio, having faced many battles of her own. But she knew that her experience on the battlefield was pale in comparison to the wars that sat under the Ashlord's snakeskin belt.

 _Never strike first,_ Tulio's voice relayed in her head as she hefted her five-foot spear, raising her shield. _Striking first is like kissing a woman who doesn't fancy you._

The Ashlord and the Ice Queen circled.

As Elsa sought an exploit in Malekith's defenses, she knew he did the same. With a viper's speed, Malekith suddenly stepped towards Elsa, breaking the cycle.

Elsa drew back, inhaling sharply through her nose and raising her shield, knees bracing for a blow that never came.

He was testing her, seeing how she'd react to an attack.

 _Stupid,_ she cursed her idiocy, _stupid stupid._ She was making novice mistakes, mistakes that could cost her lives. Many many lives. _Relax your joints, flow with the blows._

Malekith started again. She remained in her defensive stance, denying him the satisfaction of another flinch.

She could freeze him solid where he stood. Incase him in unbreakable ice for as long she wished. End the duel in an instant. But if she won that way, would he and the Blightlanders who followed him truly be hers? These men respond to prowess in battle, not magic.

Malekith stepped in closer with his next feint, but Elsa closed in to meet him. His blow to her shield was weaker than it could have been if he were truly attacking, and as she knocked the axe open, Elsa jabbed her spear for his ribs.

His recovery was swift, arm coming down to swat her spear aside and axe swinging for a true attack. Elsa avoided it, doing her damndest to say just under his offense, and thrusted this time for his knee. The Ashlord stepped back and parried in one motion.

This all occurred in under two seconds.

They circled again. Elsa thrusted, Malekith parried. She went for the legs, he slapped her spear's end aside.

He was a precise attacker, she noticed. All of his advances had been deliberate and calculated. He knew that connection was necessary for him; he was too large to lunge and pivot like a dancer. Such was evident in the blood dripping from his knuckles, the hand he used to slap away her spear.

"I do not know much about ice," growled Malekith, "But I do know that it is brittle. How do you make it so strong?"

"Bend the knee and I'll tell you."

"You have yet to defeat me."

"You have yet to _touch_ me."

She had hoped that the taunt would instigate emotion from the Ashlord, making him brash in his actions, but he remained as serene as though he still meditated.

An exchange of parries, followed by Elsa's graceful pivot. A mistake, for as she righted herself the Ashlord had ceased that microscopic window of opportunity.

He was upon her, grunting like the bear he resembled, hands grasping her weapons. Elsa bit back her cry of surprise. She know she could not match this man in strength, and he had overcome her weapons.

Elsa released her spear and shield, pulling back to avoid any oncoming blow, and a perfect copy of her weapons burst to life in her hands. Her old pair melted in Malekith's grip.

They were thirty seconds into the fight, neither one of them gaining the upper hand.

 _Time for a change of pace._

The snowball slapped into the direct center of his face. Malekith's head snapped half an inch back in surprise, the cold, packed snow dribbling down his face.

"What-,"

Another snowball interrupted him. He took a halting step back, flummoxed and disoriented. By the time he managed to wipe the snow from his eyes, the edge of Elsa's shield greeted his face violently.

She had put all her weight behind the blow, and it still wasn't enough to topple the giant. He merely took two steps back, arching his axe blindly and defensively, senses jumbled from her blow.

The blow caught her shoulder and bit into the ice plates that protected her arm. While the armor could withstand the keen blade, she knew that the kinetic power of the attack had dislocated her shoulder. Her spear clattered to the ground.

It hurt like hell.

One arm useless, and the Ashlord was only dazed. _Piece of cake_ , Elsa thought sardonically. _Saving Attolia with just my shield. What the hell._

Malekith pressed his advantage, as expected. Elsa never blocked the full force of the blows he threw at here, merely redirecting them with angled shoves of her shield. She feared that if she kept retreating like this, she would surely trip and impale herself on the rugged terrain.

The Ashlord ceased his attacks, allowing Elsa to stumble back a few steps. The High Queen was sweating. One arm limp, thin lines of blood decorating the other from the many close encounters with Malekith's blade.

"You fought well," the warlord hadn't even lost his breath. There was still snow in his braided beard. "I need not slay the queen of an empire that could crush my people. Yield, and this will be over."

"Scared?" Elsa's smile was almost lopsided.

The Ashlord heaved a grim sigh, setting his jaw. "Very well."

Two things happened at once. Malekith stepped in close, swiping his blade horizontally so to behead the High Queen, and have it mercifully over with. Elsa leaned back as he did this, acting in unison with the Ashlord as she rose her hand in a pushing motion. The only thing that moved faster than them was the pillar of ice that sprung from the ground and drove itself into Malekith's stomach.

All the breath was abruptly squeezed from his lungs. He leaned against and over the ice pillar that had rammed into him like a piston. A wheeze and a cough before the Ashlord vomited onto the plateau.

Elsa grimaced. She honestly hadn't meant to hit him that hard. She forgot to take his momentum into account. His momentum and the velocity of her pillar combined is what had incapacitated the Ashlord.

The mountainous man's head bobbed for a few seconds as he fought unconsciousness. He won, righting himself, still obviously light-headed. Malekith bent over at the waist, coughing before he let out a lingering groan.

"That was planned?" He asked, still leaning over.

"Yes," Elsa lied.

Long spikes of ice rose from the ground, surrounding the Ashlord, who made no move to avoid them. He stood straight as the spikes ceased growth half an inch from his head and face in all directions.

"Malekith, I have won the _Aghn ker_. Now, bend the knee." Even with her dislocated shoulder, smudged in soot and blood, the High Queen was a terrifying and wonderful vision.

"You have not won yet, _Nustaverdn,"_ His hand rose to hold one of the spikes that threatened to impale his face. He let go shortly, the frigid element alien to him. "A Vhagn has not yielded in centuries."

"You prove yourself already to be excellent at breaking tradition, Ashlord Malekith."

Malekith beheld the High Queen.

She was taking deep, controlled breaths, still holding that shield. Her helmet had fallen during one of their exchanges, and so her frayed snowy hair hung in a tangled mass of curls, barely held together by her braid. Bloody, dirty, pissed, and beautiful, she awaited an answer from the trapped king.

There was no cruelty in that woman. Malekith mused if whether or not that was a weakness.

"Honey." He said.

Elsa rose her brows, "Excuse me?"

"I will yield," He replied, absolutely serious, "If my people will have honey."

"How much honey?" Elsa was incredulous.

"How much honey is there?"

"This is ridiculous."

"Too high a demand?"

"Yes. No! I mean-... " The High Queen forced herself to take a breath. Three seconds inhale, three seconds exhale. How had the Ashlord become so chatty?

"And we want to learn the recipe for honey," continued the Ashlord.

"The recipe for… you _do_ know what honey comes from, right?"

A pause. "... sugar?"

"No."

"Damn it."

"Bees."

"Bees?"

"They come from bees," Elsa explained, forgetting herself.

"Bees," mused Malekith, emphasizing with a 'z' sound at the end. He seemed to have disregarded the fact that he was less than half an inch from death altogether. "That's a stupid name. The Vhagn will invent another."

"You can't invent another name for-," She took in a brisk breath, closed her eyes, and counted again. "You're not in a position for demands, Malekith."

"And what would you do?" He met her gaze, black hues burrowing, "Would you kill me, High Queen Elsa?"

She gave no answer, for it was not necessary. Between them there was a clear understanding of who was the killer, and who was not.

"Atha has made her word known, _Nustavardn,"_ the Ashlord said. She couldn't decipher his expression, which seemed neither pleased nor displeased. Simply there, adapting without complaint. Like the face of a cliff.

"I yield. The _Aghn ker_ is yours."

That was it, then. No political baggage, no month-long debates. No betrayal, no deceit. Painstakingly simple, yet endlessly complex. Elsa had won. She did it.

No war would come.

She laughed. It was a rising, nearly mad giggling that transformed to a bellyaching fit of glee. Some would say this reaction was unbefitting of a queen, much less an empress of kingdoms. But the days have grown longer as each gone by. The heat, the bugs, and the ash had pelted her nonstop. It was not over; she had yet to make the journey back to Attolia, which neighbored the Blightlands. But at that moment, there as the ash fell and hot steam exploded into the air, the High Queen Elsa of Imperium laughed like a woman succumbing to a lover's tickle.

"All the honey you want!" Elsa cried, joyous, "Ashlord Malekith of the Blightlands, the Vhagn will have all the honey you want!"

 **. . .**

 **Chapter's Index**

 **Aghn ker (** aw-kk-n kir ) **-** Aghn translating as "Brawl" and ker translating as "of blood" (root word: ke) to invoke _**Aghn ker**_ is to challenge a peer or superior to a duel. It is a common tool in Blightland politics. _**Aghn ker**_ is often to the death.

 **Atha ( Ah-th-ah ) -** The Blightland goddess of fire and justice. Vhagn believe that she is bound to the Ashpeaks, entrapped by dark gods. Others believe she is the very land of the Blight, which is how she allows them to live there.

 **Nustaverdn (** N-oo-stah-vair-dn **)** \- Roughly translates as "high lady", an expression of respect for women in power. It's also another word for goddess.

 **Nrushtrastn (** Nroo-shtrah-stn) - Roughly translates as "Lady's Land". It is the Vhaggish word for their homeland.

 **Urgish eghn mul (** erg-ish ay-hn m-ool **) -** A profanity scholars believe refers to one's idiocy.

 **Uudn (** oo-dn **)** \- Vhaggish word for 3 years.

 **Rhakshasa (** Rahk-shaw-sah **) -** Vhaggish word for fire demon and Ashlord **(** Root words: **Rhak** is fire, **Shasa** is demon **)**

 **Skaad (** Skah-d **) -** Vhaggish word for "Hidden".

 **The Vhagn (** Vah-gn **) -** An ancient and unyielding warrior race of people who value honor and prowess in battle above all else. Their skin, eyes, and hair are dark, which is a complete contrast to the fair-skinned folk of Imperium. **The** **Vhagn** gain their savage reputation from the long-lasting war with the desert-people to the Blightland's east.

 **Imperium Geography**

 **Attolia (** at-oh-lee-uh **) -** The easternmost province of Imperium. It is a Greek-style kingdom, ruled by the foreign King Eddis. **Attolia** is the center of trade for silks, wine, exotic fruits, and medicines, and is home to the most provincial scholars in the world.

 **Arendelle -** The northernmost state of Imperium, Arendelle is a cold and humble land, whose mountains have protected its occupants for generations. It is the birthplace of High Queen Elsa, where Queen Anna now rules with a kind hand.

 **The Blightlands -** Also known as _Nrushtrastn_ by its natives, the Blightlands is a barren plateau of brimstone and molten rock. It constantly snows ash from the Ashpeaks, a chain of small active volcanoes. It's only human inhabitants are the Blightlanders, or Vhagn, as they preferred to be called, who have risen a civilization amid the burning and broken rocks. But the Vhagn now seek other, softer places to live.

 **Blys (** bliss **) -** The capital of Imperium, where cultures and religions are wide in variety. People from the five kingdoms and further come to live in her streets. This is also where the Winter Throne stands, upon which rules High Queen Elsa.

 **Corona -** While Imperium and Corona have steady relationships in trade, Corona has not yet joined the five kingdoms. Its rulers, Queen Rapunzel and King Eugene, are cautious of the global superpower (rightfully so).

 **The North Beacons -** A line of four massive spires in the icy North Sea, manned by the ever vigilant Mistwatch, a vanguard of soldiers sworn to "watch the mist". They are tasked to protect the mainland from creatures that step onto the earth's edge, but now the tales are seen as silly, and the Mistwatch are made out to be men playing soldiers on their towers in the mist.

 **The Southern Isles -** The first kingdom to come under Imperium's rule, and the only kingdom to be conquered with force.

 **Imperium -** An empire originating from Arendelle, ruled by High Queen Elsa. **Imperium** has its own city capital based between the five kingdoms under Elsa's reign, which is where the High Queen and Her Grace's Court resides.

 **Trost (** traw-st **) -** Mountainfolk are rarely ever welcomed down to the plains and plateaus of Imperium, for the people of Imperium know very well what they are. Druids, worshippers of forgotten, sleeping gods. Witches, who snatch children from their beds to raise them and nurture them into becoming witches themselves. Of course, this could very well merely be tales woven by storytellers who claim to have been. The **Trost** Mountainfolk are a secluded people, but word has it that young king Eddis hails from the cursed peaks. What a **Trost** might do with a throne under his hand, no one can be certain.

 **Walpurgisnacht (** wall-per-g-is-nah-kt **) -** Also known as the Highlands, **Walpurgisnacht** is the cliffland province just southwest of Arendelle, boarding the Fog Sea. Once ruled by four barbarian factions, Sealord Cheif Fergison claimed rule over **Walpurgisnacht** after ending a centuries-long civil war amongst brothers. After uniting the four factions, Fergison bent the knee to High Queen Elsa, granting Imperium the greatest navy fleet in the world. Highlanders are a hardy people, and many families have migrated to live in the other kingdoms to work as successful fishers. Back in **Walpurgisnacht** , war-lusting Houses have broken from their chief to form bands of barbarians, who now attack merchant caravans further inland.

 **Characters**

 **Eugenides (** yoo-jen-ih-dees **) -** A respected scholar and eccentric inventor who was personally elected by Elsa to become her advisor and expert on anything and everything. He is brought along to meetings with foreign rulers and dignitaries, often to translate languages and explain customs. He is paid generously, and back home in the city of Blys he personally funds a project to invent a contraption called the "telescope" for his need to closer view the stars. **Eugenides** is one of the only members of Her Grace's Court to be called a friend of the High Queen, who calls him Gen when they're in privacy. **Eugenides** exhibits an energy and wonder that belays his old age, his wit and fearless nature charming those around into liking him almost instantly.

 **Commanding Officer Aeris (** ay-ris **) -** Hailing from Attolia, **Aeris** is the first woman to reach such a high-ranking position in any military. She is a formidable warrior and a stoic character, but her most noticeable aspect is her height. **Aeris** is six foot five inches.

 **General Thorleif (** Thor-leaf **) -** A short and stout man, Thorleif has seen his fair share of war, and he is ceaselessly impressed (and irked) by how well Elsa has evaded it. A strongly strategic mind, he commands the Imperial Military, and harbors a deep attraction for his High Queen.

 **King Eddis of Attolia (** Eh-d-iss **) -** The whimsical and enigmatic king of lavish kingdom Attolia, **Eddis** had not gained the throne by right of birth. Rather, he married into the throne with Athenia, the former fair queen, who was famous for her long raven hair. Word has it that King **Eddis** hails from Trost, a civilization in the mountains. He is a young man, slight of height and stature, but one can sense a stigmatic secrecy in the way he talks. One would be wise not to trust him.

 **Elsa's Personal Hand Servant -** A bumbling young oaf, this nameless servant is often seen carrying the High Queen's packages, holding shade above her head, and bringing her iced beverages. He is what people call an idiot, and goes on hardly noticed at all.

 **High Queen Elsa Frode -** Inexplicably born with the powers of Winter, Elsa hails from the humble and frigid kingdom of Arendelle, where on the day of her coronation, she froze summer. Since that day, she reigned as sovereign over the small kingdom until agents of the Southern Isles attempted to take her sister's life. Enraged, Elsa unleashed her wrath upon the Isles, claiming it. On her journey to conquer the Southern Isles, Elsa witnessed poverty, drought, organized crime, and corruption throughout neighboring kingdoms, and so was born a dream to raise a paradise from the ground, where all her people would be safe and bellies would be full. Over the ten years of building her Imperium, the now High Queen has amassed an unfathomable wealth, easily making her the most powerful ruler in the land.

 **Ashlord Malekith of the Blightlands (** Mal-eh-kith **) -** A widely feared warlord, most would be shocked to find that the Ashlord has a surprisingly cautious nature. This is viewed as a weakness by arrogant warriors of the Vhagn, but none can match his prowess in a fight, leaving him to be the true ruler of his people. The Vhagn are trapped in centuries-old tradition, but **Malekith** believes progress for his people is necessary, beginning with leaving behind the Blightlands. He has taken seven wives and seeded six sons, hardly ever interacting with his wives any longer.

 **Nix** **(** Nih-ks **) -** Her name latin for "Snow", Nix is a wintry creation of High Queen Elsa. The mightiest horse in all the land with a bottomless reservoir of stamina, the mare's coat of snow is so soft that it resembles a true horse hide. Elsa is certain that the horse can speak like all her other creations, but for some unknown reason, **Nix** acts just like a horse should. She even eats.

 **Tulio Luccio** **(** too-lee-oh loo-chee-oh **)** \- A sword-dancer from the far east, beyond the Blightlands, where the people's skin are dark and their land rolling mounds of sand. **Tulio** was a wandering duelist with a bounce in his step and a jovial tune at his lips, until he saved the life of Eugenides the Scholar from a band of Highland barbarians. Eugenides, with the High Queen's eager permissions, begged the sword dancer to stay in the Blys Citadel for as long as he liked. He offered to train the High Queen in _Eluniosi,_ a long forgotten fighting art. Paid handsomely for each lesson, **Tulio** now lives contentedly in Blys, having married a gentle baker.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter II**

" _What is that behind my eyes? I do not sleep, no. No, when I try, I am but taken away to another place… Who leans over me? Who grins as I die?!" -_ Ludus Massus, Attolian mathematician, aged 36. Died of heart failure.

 _..._

 **About a pole are bound ribbons of every color.**

Singing children are holding these ribbons, skipping and running around the pole as if they play some foreign game, which is played upon the very crest of some high-reaching mountain. The land stretches out in all directions, seemingly without end.

Blue over green, green over yellow, and yellow taking green and red. It is a game of conquest; whose color will be most visible? Will it be the forest green, or the icy white? With it be the sea-blue or the vengeful red? Gentle yellow? Maddening black?

It was an enchanting sight, all those ribbons swirling together so splendidly. The crime would be to look away.

But upon closer inspection, the pole is not a pole at all, but a woman. A woman who stands rigid, her brilliant eyes vacant. There's a hot wind that sighs from the east, and from the west rise hungry howls, where a monstrous shadow looms. The colors grow mute, and now the children are laughing.

She does not struggle. That is what's most eerie. She's closer now, and she tilts her head down to appraise in absence of emotion, like some indifferent god of judgement. Unyielding, endless, wise, ancient.

The world has gone dark. All that can be seen is the woman who lowers herself to her knees. A smile graces her ruby lips as the ribbons encircle her slender throat, easing the life from her. Her eyes close as she welcomes the oncoming slumber eternal.

"Do not weep," High Queen Elsa says, "It is my penance."

. . .

Prince Oliver of Arendelle blinked awake from his slumber. Memory of his frightful dream lingered behind his eyelids, and he promptly sat up in his desk, a page of paper from the stack he'd used as a pillow sticking to his face. The prince tore it off blearily, the haze about him coming into focus.

He'd spent the night in his grandfather's old study once again. His parents did not approve of his deep ventures into the library, fearing he may fall from a ladder in his carelessness, as absent-minded as he was. His late grand-uncle Utgaard died that way, hence instilling such a fear in the Frode family. Oliver discarded the fear as silliness, opting to spend his spare time in the Palace Study nonetheless.

It was a decidedly cozy space. Even as the coals in the hearth cooled and his wax candle melted away in the night, there was a particular warmth of the room. Tall shelves stretched upward, rows upon rows of volumes depicting histories, biographies, fairy tales, atlases, and much more. Oliver himself favored the non-fictional, carrying on his education by himself long after tutoring hours. This

impressed his father, who had been learning to read shortly before Oliver was born, and still squinted at longer words.

The door opened into the dim study, a shaft of light from the world outside. An aged man, bent and bald, shuffled in from the corridor beyond. He held a tray of lukewarm breakfast, and his face was wrinkled with age and displeasure.

"Again the youth neglects the comfort of his bed," he voiced his disapproval, "Does this place have windows, young lord?"

Able was Haruudian, a remnant of an old and lost culture. Haruud was once a vast civilization, one that had invented the sundial and named the months, days, and years. The Star-Watchers, people had called them. But the Haruud capital had long since passed into time, her people scattered about the earth like cast grain. And Able didn't seem moved at all about what happened above the sky. He was more focused on the whimsical prince than anything.

"Behind me," yawned Oliver, watching as the muttering old man rounded the desk and drew the curtains.

Dawn's shine spilled into the room, rays of light made visible by the thick dusty air. Able coughed and waved his hand before his face as if just noticing it. "I gather that my pleas will again go unheeded when I ask him to not do this again?" His accent was very faint and clipped, nothing more than a distant and exotic twang to a voice rusted with age.

"Correct," Oliver grinned, "Why does the study go untouched by the cleaning staff? I've been meaning to ask."

"Mourning and history, young lord," Able set the tray on Oliver's desk, "Queen Anna and High Queen Elsa neglected it for so long that the servants came to neglect it themselves."

"Because of my grandfather?"

"Because of his grandfather," Able nudged the tray, "Now eat, young lord."

Oliver leaned over the tray, frowning. "Where's the coffee?"

"No coffee," Able ran a finger along the desk's top and scowled at the dust on his fingertips, "Freshly-squeezed orange juice. The prince has been consuming too much of that drink. It will yellow his teeth."

"My teeth might go yellow, but my belly would be happy," muttered Oliver. Still, orange juice was good. Cold, but good. He took a sip. "What time is it?"

"Past 9:40 morn, young lord," said Able, "He has missed breakfast with the family. Again."

Oliver made a passionless sound, "And there will be a million family breakfasts in the future."

Able bit back a retort. For such an eloquent and learned young lad, the boy always failed to acknowledge the special and long-lasting. It was impressive, albeit atypical, for a boy his age of twelve to embrace academics so. A good thing, in fact. But his time drowned in an insatiable quest for knowledge often pulled him apart from family. They were not distant, nor was the boy opposed to spending time with them. He loved them most in the world, even if he did not realize it. But Oliver had a withdrawn sort of nature about him, something fickle and almost mysterious, funny as that sounds. Many of the younger and more playful servants had taken to calling him 'Little Wizard' amongst themselves, for stories often depicted wizards to act in a manner similar to the prince.

Oliver rose, having finished but half of his juice, and made for the door. "Time to get dressed for the day." He very well could not roam the palace in not but the bathrobe and the thin night linens he wore.

"Before that," Able interluded, "A word from the queen."

"Yes?" Oliver crossed his arms.

"King Fergison of Walpurgisnacht will attend the Festival of Five as an honored guest. He will arrive past noon."

The prince uncrossed his arms. This was news indeed. The Sealord Chieftain had never visited Arendelle, even after Walpurgisnacht was bound to Imperium. The king had also never visited Blys, the grand capital. Would the High Queen see this as an insult, that the Sea King comes Arendelle before Blys? No, Aunt Elsa was many, _many_ things. Egotistical was not one of them.

"Your mother wishes for her and his sister's company on her trip to the fjord, to greet King Fergison upon his arrival." Finished Able. He studied the young prince, the way his hazel eyes wandered about while in deep thought.

"Right then," Oliver clapped his hands together and made for the door, "Then I had _better_ dress for the day."

"And he had _better_ eat," Able called after the prince, who left his sweet porridge and bacon untouched.

"You eat it!" Responded Oliver turning, stepping in reverse towards to the corridor.

"This is why the young lord is so skinny," Able faced the retreating lord, but then furrowed his brow in puzzled concern. The light from the open window was now shining on Oliver's face, giving the servant a clear view of the prince for the first time that day. "My prince?"

"Yes, what?" Something in Able's voice made him stop.

"Is he okay?" Able stepped towards Oliver, who frowned in confusion.

"What d'you mean? Of course I am."

Able neared closer, his countenance easing a sliver of fear into Oliver's chest. "What is it, Able?"

"He's been crying, the young lord." Breathed the aged servant.

"What're you going on about? I haven't be-," but as he spoke, the prince had risen his fingertips to his cheek. There he found a cold, crusting wetness.

He was taken back then to his dream, the one with the sad woman, the ravenous howls, and the hot, unbearable winds.

. . .

 _Dearest Anna,_

 _I wish I could come speak to you with my own voice, but pen and parchment will have to suffice._

 _Of course you remember when I confided in you my plans for the west? I confessed my fear for war becoming the outcome should I fail in negotiations, a fear now tossed aside. Success, Anna._

 _But as one obstacle is overcome, a larger obstacle follows it. The Vhagn are going to make their journey into more comfortable lands, but there will be rejection. People fear the unknown, and the unknown are the Vhagn. I plan to counter this by means of hosting a celebration of the joining of the Blightlands and Imperium, and you, should your duties lessen following the Festival of Five, are invited._

 _The Vhagn need kind faces, and yours is the kindest I know._

 _But that is not all. I trust that key points in my letters go unmentioned, and I ask that what I'm about to say be one of them. Troubling times are coming, Anna. I can't quite explain it. I'm not even certain how to put this in ink. I feel that grave danger may be on our horizon. Ten years ago, when I conquered the Southern Isles and instilled dictation, I predicted that something like this might happen. I have few trusted friends in the capital. There is Gen, but he is old and grows frail, despite his uncanny energy. The general tries my patience, and I feel that I may replace him once we reach Blys. He is bold, but brusque and impatient. The remaining members of my court are but business partners, and my spies have come to me with whispers of a secret threat._

 _It is mere rumor, and I shan't let my suspicions cloud my judgement. I know that I have made many choices that the majority of my court disagrees with, such as deeming prostitution illegal, thus cutting off profitable revenues many of my subjects thrived upon._

 _I don't want to end on such a dour note. I know I have been accused of being excessively dramatic. Good wishes to you, Anna. I promise I will not let my suspicions consume me. However, I must stress that you keep both of your eyes and ears open. One cannot be too careful._

 _With love,_

 _Elsa_

Spøkelse, the High Queen's regal messenger owl, was perched on Anna's backrest. The Queen of Arendelle's smile had dropped to a thoughtful frown. Not all that her sister had said were good tiding. She felt cold in the chest. A hint of fear?

"Good news, my queen?" The wine-enthused Selvig, Minister of Coin, shuffled his papers as he scowled at the numbers displayed there. He had not noticed her frown.

"In a way, yes," Anna said. She preferred to keep some details of her sister's letters private. Quite early in her reign she learned truly how far few simple words can fly, how many little birds whisper in their masters' ears. Did she distrust her court? Not particularly, but one could not be too careful.

The Arendelle Courtroom was comprised of three men, all seated in wooden chairs at a longtable, at the center of which sat Queen Anna upon a gilded chair, with a backrest that rose above the others. There was Selvig, the tax-collecting Minister of Coin. Conor McCoy, Minister of Ships, who managed Arendelle's small fleet of merchant ships. Ellard, Minister of Trade, who oversaw the transactions of Arendelle with foreign kingdoms.

"The Blightlands are now Imperium's," Anna rolled up the scroll, its edges crinkling, "High Queen Elsa has successfully garnered peace between the Vhagn and Attolia." _So far._

"Curious," mused Selvig. He was a white-bearded and thin-haired man, whose years of drinking had immensed his girth. "I doubted 'peace' was in their ' vocabulary. Ash-ridden savages…"

"Careful now," Minister Ellard plucked a fruit from a passing tray. The day was still early, and as the Festival of Five neared, a private breakfast sometimes had to be sacrificed. "You wouldn't want these 'ash-ridden savages' to cut out your tongue when you meet them."

"You're gladdened by this news?" Selvig leaned forward.

"The Vhagn army is formidable," answered Ellard, "they could prove very useful."

"Against whom?" Selvig knocked his fist on the table, "No fool would dare test Imperium."

"There are those across the sea," said the Minister of Trade, "Those who turn their eyes to our lands with envy."

"Slavers," scoffed Selvig, "Soft little men in their towers with tiny little-."

"Okay," Queen Anna rose her voice and her hand, agitation evident in her voice, "That's enough. Selvig, Ellard, are we the Court of Imperium or the Court of Arendelle?"

Conor McCoy hid a smirk behind his chalice whilst the two ministers faltered in perplexed silence. Their queen did have a brash and passionate quality about her, something to which they were forced to adapt, and while her outbursts were not far in between, she could certainly be terrifying.

"Well?" Queen Anna persisted.

"Court of Arendelle, Your Majesty." Both answered.

"Then I don't see the need to concern ourselves with Imperial matters," concluded Anna. The snowy owl above her beat its massive wings in emphasis. This generated wary looks from the courtmen. A strange creature, that owl. Larger than most, with eyes as bright and blue as a winter lake. Her acute stare was brimmed with an alarming awareness that was alien to animals. The owl's origins were unknown. Not even Eugenides, the renowned scholar, could say. How she came to be a servant of the High Queen was an untold story.

Anna flattened out a fresh parchment of scroll paper and reached for her inkwell, stopping just short. "Where's my quill?" She lifted a small stack of scrolls, a few rolling off the edge of the table. "My quill? Where is it?" She repeated, more insistently that time.

The courtmen began moving books and paper about in search for the queen's heron-feather quill. A cup bearer even checked under a fruit from the platter she held.

"Use mine, Your Majesty," Conor McCoy held out his own, which was donned by a raven's feather.

"Found it!" Selvig crowed victoriously.

Anna stopped just short of taking it. "That's not mine, Selvig."

"Truly?" Selvig pinched the feather, "I could have sworn this was yours."

"Your Majesty, please take mine," insisted Conor.

"Thank you." Anna accepted it, dipped the quill in her inkwell, and began writing.

"Are you absolutely certain that this isn't yours, Your Majesty?" Said the ancient Minister of Coin, squinting suspiciously at the quill he held.

The queen ignored him, absently biting her lip as she wrote.

"Your Majesty?"

"Selvig," Anna's smile was a sweet poison.

"Yes, Your Majesty?"

"Shut up, please."

"Beg pardon, Your Majesty?" Selvig cupped an ear, "I'm afraid my hearing isn't what it once was."

The queen ignored the Minister of Coin once again.

 _Loving Sister,_

 _After hearing your fears, I'm overjoyed that you overcame them and secured victory. I have so many questions-_

"I beg your pardon, Majesty, I'm afraid I could not hear you before." Selvig said, leaning in closer to the queen.

Anna in turn leaned a fraction back, staring at Selvig long and hard. Perhaps she should begin her search for a new, younger Minister of Coin.

Selvig opened his mouth to speak once again, but was stopped by Conor McCoy. "Have some wine," he said. Interest thoroughly swayed, Selvig took the wine and drank greedily.

As the queen wrote, she sent for hot wax and the seal stamp of her royal family, the golden crocus. When finished with the letter, she poured gold wax on the folded ends and pressed the stamp down. When Anna removed it, the crocus of Arendelle gazed back up. It was not an official letter, but Elsa seemed wary. The seal would ensure that the letter would not be opened (or if it would, they'd know). It was best to make Elsa feel secure in times like these. To show her that Anna was by her side, however far away, no matter what rose to assail them.

"Right then," She rose from the table with a hurried abruptness, her gilded chair scooting back soundly. Spøkelse flapped her white wings to maintain balance. "Spøkelse," issued the queen. The owl responded immediately, dropping down to the tabletop and doubtless scratching the wood with her impressive talons.

All the courtmen but Conor recoiled. Queen Anna did not, though she didn't — couldn't — fault them. Those talons could tear out a man's the owl was well trained — as well as any wild beast could be trained — and so she did nothing but stand still as Anna strapped the small scroll to the owl's heel. With a shriek, Spøkelse beat its massive wings and soured out the window through which it had made entry.

And so the court duties continued. The days preluding holidays such as the Festival of Five often entailed long, grueling hours. The results, however, were never disappointing. Discussions of revenues, transactions, shortages of this, abundances of that, certifications to sign, responses to letters from dignitaries of royal families and ambassadors of foreign nations, and on and on it went. Their duties often spilled into the lunch hour, during which Queen Anna would be forced to dine in the courtroom as they worked.

On days when there was no festival or celebration to be hosted, Queen Anna would spend her longer hours of freedom with her family. The eloquent and musically-gifted Oliver, her eldest child, the brazen and tenacious Sigrid, the younger twin to Oliver, and her husband, Ice Master Kristoff. And, of course, Olaf and Sven, the latter of whom grows weary in his old age.

She missed them on days like this.

Strange. Oliver and Sigrid hadn't come. Anna had sent for them not an hour ago. It wasn't abnormal to find that Sigrid had not answered her summons, the girl seldom did. But Oliver was always so punctual. A trait she nor her daughter possessed.

"Morges," the queen addressed her young handservant, whose blonde hair was trapped in the uniform bun of staff, "Go find my children."

Morges bowed at the waist and made for the double doors. Doors that suddenly burst open to reveal a panting and panicked young dockman.

He heaved and wheezed, bent at the hips to lean on his knees. Irked guards accompanied him a moment later, reaching to grab his shoulders and drag him away. How had he gotten past the other guards?

"Wait," Queen Anna commanded. The guards blinked at her, uncomprehending.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion?" Demanded Selvig, "Who are you?"

"I, I," the boy coughed, "The-... " he gasped for breath again.

 _He must have run all the way from the docks,_ thought Queen Anna. He wore the brown trousers and white canvas shirt of a man who spent his days in the beating sun, his feet bare, bruised, and blistered from his run.

"Well?" Ellard, calmer than his fellow minister, leaned forward. "Speak up boy."

"Look at the poor thing," Conor McCoy mused aloud, entertained, "Can hardly stand on his two feet."

"Curse this," Selvig muttered, "The boy had better bear some paramount news to disturb us this way."

" _Fergison_!" the boy gasped, "King Fergison..." he gestured wildly about as he attempted to from his message into literacy. "He's. _Here_!"

Everyone in the court went very, _very_ still.

"Well," said Selvig, "That'll do it."

 **. . .**

"Back straight, my lady. Shield up. _Sword_ up, I thought we'd covered the basics."

"We did."

"Do you need a refreshment course?"

"No. I just forgot."

"That means you need a refreshment course, my lady."

Princess Sigrid, dressed in boots, leggings, and a wide-sleeved canvas shirt, scowled. "I just don't see why I need a shield."

Across from the princess, casually poised for attack, stood fleet Lieutenant Bror. A tall, broad-shouldered man nearing the age of bent backs and moled noses. His greying blonde hair was braided out of his face, his hard blue eyes frowning with his mouth. "The shield is for protection, my lady."

"I _know_ what a shield is for, Bror," Sigrid lowered both shield and sword, casting aside all pretenses of enthusiasm. It was her third day into her private training, and she'd made absolutely no progress. The shield felt wrong on her arm. She was slight and skinny, and the shield, although smaller than most, did nothing but slow her down.

"I just think shields are...," the princess sought the proper word, "old-fashioned. The duelists never use shields."

"Duelists are duelists. It's a sport." The Sigrid-weathered lieutenant was unamused, "Meant for pleasing an audience. Your father instructed me to teach you properly."

"I like the duelists' style," still Sigrid complained as she poked at the ground with her wood sword, "And it looks like it works well enough."

Sighing in defeat, Bror too lowered his makeshift weapon. "I'll let you in on a secret, my lady."

"I know they're fake," Sigrid scoffed, "Brain-butt never misses a chance to tell me when we go to see one."

'Brain-butt', one of many crude names the princess had invented for her learned brother, who was now descending the steps into the training grounds. He appeared to not have heard her, for instead of taking offense (as he so often did in their sibling rivalries) he waved. "Sig, I've a message from mother."

As twins, Sigrid and Oliver bore absolutely nothing in common. Oliver was tall, Sigrid was miniscule. Oliver's hair was a chestnut brown, Sigrid had the fair head of her father. Oliver was gentle and elegant, Sigrid, brusque and graceless. The contrasts went on and on, even to the kinds of food they favored and how they slept.

The twins did share one trait, however. They both owned the lopsided grin of the Frode Family.

"I read it earlier," the princess put her back to her brother and swung her sword at Bror, catching him half-bow for his prince. The sword smacked him in the shoulder, which elicited a victorious hoot from the princess. "Hah! Gotchya!"

"So you're just going to ignore her again," Oliver's voice dripped with disapproval, "Honestly I don't even know why she involved you."

Sigrid ignored his latter statement. "Because we're not meeting King Fergison in the courtroom, idiot," Sigrid swung again for Bror, who was ready this time. He parried and tapped his sword on her knee. "Ow. We're meeting him at the docks."

"Yes, but mother still wants to see us to address protocol."

"I know."

"So…"

"So what?" Sigrid failed to parry a blow from Bror, earning a slap to her own shoulder, "Ow!"

" _So_ ," irritation was evident in Oliver's voice, "Why aren't you headed to the courtroom?"

"Because I don't want to," said the princess blatantly.

Bror began to realize the situation he was trapped in; he was a tool of the princess's direct disobedience of the queen. Would he be held accountable for this? Best to make his exit swift.

"Pardon, my lady," he bowed, "but my duties call."

Sigrid quirked a brow, a gesture all too similar to her aunt's, "Are pirates attacking the fjord? Has my aunt declared war on the Zellucians?"

"Erm, no, my lady."

"Then I don't see how your duties call," concluded Sigrid. "Stay."

Bror stared at the princess. She was far too damn clever for her own good, where most air-headed noble girls would simply accept his excuse and go about giggling and braiding each other's hair. Sigrid's hair was braided in the popular northern style, also like her aunt, but nobody else wove it. She tended to herself.

Their father had taught them both that if they didn't grow up dressing themselves, they wouldn't know how to lace their own boots when they were grown ups. One of the many advantages of having a bastard, common-born father. Although whoever called Ice Master Kristoff a bastard in the presence of his children earned a hatred shared between them.

Sigrid attempted a brave but foolish pivot, earning a slap to the thigh. "Owwww!"

Oliver scoffed, folding his arms. "I don't see why you bother with this. You aren't going into the military as a girl."

"Aeris the Bearish did," Sigrid rubbed her thigh where she was struck, wondering if she'd gain a welt, "And now she's a commanding officer."

"Pretty sure that Aeris is a man," Oliver dismissed this with a wave of his hand, "People twist tales all the time."

"Aeris is a woman," Concluded Sigrid as she prepared to attack Bror yet again, "And besides, I'm not going into the military. I'm becoming a duelist."

"Oh yes, that's much better," Oliver muttered under his breath. He watched as Sigrid swung at Bror, who blocked the blow. Even to his untrained eye Oliver could see where Sigrid left herself open. Despite her shortcomings he was forced to admit his sister was terribly ambitious. That was something he could respect. All Oliver was ambitious of was how much further he could expand on the library.

"What would be your dueling name?" Asked the prince.

"Dunno," Sigrid successfully deflected a blow from Bror, only to stumble back from the following shove. "Nothing overdramatic, though."

"How about _Laochra_?" Offered Oliver, "It's Snatchish for warrior."

"That's overdramatic," Sigrid was pushed back yet again by her trainer.

Oliver shrugged "Not if you live up to it."

Sigrid swung her practice sword too hard, leaving herself open too long yet again. A mistake she repeated. Bror poked her in the chest with his blunt weapon.

"There," he tried to conceal the terseness from his voice, "We'll continue training tomorrow, my lady."

"But I haven't learned anything," groaned the princess.

 _Because you refuse to listen,_ is what Bror wanted to say. Sigrid had dropped her shield minutes ago.

It was true what she said about shields growing out of fashion. Even swords were changing, duelists choosing slender little sabers over broadswords and short spears. Word has it, even, that one dueling baron had put down his opponent by means of a miniature cannon he held in one hand. Bror didn't believe it, but still, warfare was changing. Traditionalists like him would be left in the dust.

"Sigrid," Oliver mussed his oft neat hair, "Why must you make everything so difficult?"

"Why _must_ I?" Sigrid jabbed at Bror, who deflected reluctantly. He didn't seize her opening this time, simply holding back and blocking the next attack. "You talk like a grown up."

"Maybe I am."

"Hah!" Sigrid scoffed, "I thought you were supposed to the smart one."

"I'm more grown up than you are."

Sigrid whirled and slapped the back of his hand with her sword like a teacher's switch.

"Ow!" Oliver recoiled, "It's true!"

She hit him again, he exclaimed again. "Stop it!"

It was not alien to Bror or the palace staff to find the royal twins bickering. They hardly ever got along, much to the chagrin of their parents. When they did, it was far and few in between.

"Pick up a sword," Sigrid challenged, dipping into that ridiculous pose of one hand on her hip, the other holding her sword aloft. The famous pose of her favorite duelist, Von Swan.

"What? No!" Refused the prince, cradling his hand.

"Then how will you defend yourself?" Sigrid slapped him in the shoulder.

"I won't! You'll stop!"

"Will I?" Sigrid wrinkled her brow, "Then you must know something I don't." She swung at him again, but missed. He had been smart enough to duck this time.

Bror was at a loss of what to do. He was a father of one, a boy, but the royal children were no business of his. Was it his responsibility to break it up? He was not their personal handlers, and the only reason he was training Sigrid at all was because he owed their father a favor. Perhaps this was too much to ask. These kids were crazy.

"Stop attacking me!" Oliver ducked again, but the end of the stave caught his elbow, "I'll tell mother!"

"Yes, 'cause mama just solves all your problems for you," Sigrid laughed.

Flushed with anger, Oliver reared on her, painfully swatting aside the next attack and shoving his much smaller sister. He felt guilty as soon as he did it, watching her fall unceremoniously on her rump like that.

"You shouldn't be so evil all the time," he said, cheeks still scarlet.

Sigrid brushed herself off without getting up. It had hurt, but she wasn't about to let her beanstalk brother know that. "You shouldn't be so bossy all the time."

They were silent for a moment. Sigrid was about to get up when she found Oliver's open hand in her face.

"Truce?" He offered.

Sigrid glowered. She could be stubborn, she could drag this on and on, but even Sigrid knew when something is taken too far. She teased her brother, not tormented him. Those slaps could have been plenty harder.

She took his hand. "Truce," the princess agreed.

"Sorry for pushing."

"Had it coming."

"You did."

"Okay, shut up now."

Oliver grinned. "Okay."

Just as he said this, the distant sounding of trumpets reached them. This wasn't uncommon, all day the bells and trumpets sounded from the fjord, announcing the arrival of notable merchants and dignitary's ships. These entailed two short blasts of the trumpet, signaling the dockmen to prepare for the newcomers and guide the ship for a spot to port. But this time was different, the trumpets sounded four times. Someone of _very_ high importance had just entered the fjord.

Curiosity bested both children, who rushed across the training grounds and into the courtyard. They passed the stables, where a stable boy brushed Sigrid's chestnut pony, Epperly. Oliver had no steed, having never learned how to ride. Together the royal siblings approached the Palace Gates, gates that had once remained closed for years in the Ice Queen's seclusion.

There at the gates they could see the whole city of Arendelle, with a clear view of the fjord-harbor. It was a near perfect circle of sapphire blue, ringed by both the city and the mountain. The last few days had been ripe with newcomers swarming into the kingdom, which made with a fjord bursting with ships of every type imaginable. Dinghys, clippers, galleons, they left and came, some moving faster than others, sails unfurling and billowing in the morning breezes. The royal children could imagine the sounds from where they stood. Vendors shouting deals, fishermen wrestling with thick-corded nets, the crying of alabaster gulls as they soared overhead in search for discarded food. The Festival of Five was the highlight of the year for most folk, and the whole world had come.

Despite the packed fjord, Oliver and Sigrid found the ship being announced almost immediately.

Sigrid squinted at it, "Is that a longboat?"

Oliver stared at it, watching as the many oarsmen paddled their way towards the docks. The long oars made the ship look like it had wings, which amused him. "Yes. Look," he pointed needlessly, "Only one mast."

"Hm," Sigrid murmured, "Walpurgeryish."

"Snachtish," corrected Oliver.

It took the twins much too long for the obvious to dawn on them. " _King Fergison!"_ They exclaimed together.

With renewed enthusiasm, they watched the longboat's progress as it bobbed upon the fjord. It was a windy day, a storm was surely approaching and would likely arrive in a few days. It was much too far away for them to distinct any of the men aboard.

"When did mother say he'd be here?" Asked Sigrid.

Oliver still watched, lips slightly parted. "Late in the afternoon."

Sigrid started down towards the city.

"What're you doing?" Oliver watched her go, puzzled.

She continued on as if he went unheard, bypassing an enthralled palace maid who nearly dropped her basket of linens. The maid gaped as the princess herself breezed by her, and almost fell down the steps as the prince too followed her.

"What are you _doing,_ Sigrid?" He repeated, louder this time.

"To greet the Walpurgis-whatever king," she responded cheerily.

"No," Oliver tried to catch up with her, only succeeding in nearly tripping over a slab of cobblestone, "Sigrid, _no_!"

"Suppose you're gonna stop me, eh?" She skipped out of reach as Oliver tried to grab her. It would be fruitless to catch her, Sigrid was athletically superior to her spindly brother.

"Sigrid, we can _not_ do this," the prince pleaded with his twin, "We're the royal children! We have to be accompanied with guards, and our parents, and-and-,"

"Who said anything about we?" She snatched up a baguette from a kitchen scullion's basket. It was a day of restocking the pantries, and so scullions and other servants would be seen entering and leaving the palace like 'busy worker ants', Sigrid had once mused.

"Stop!" Demanded Oliver, "You are being irrational and stupid!"

"King Fergison of Wally-snocky hoo-ha is here early because he wants to catch mama off guard," Sigrid tore a well-sized bite from the baguette, "Buth he won'th gets duh bedder of ush."

"What?" The horror-stricken Oliver said, barely matching her brisk pace.

Sigrid swallowed, "But he won't get the better of us. He'll find the prince and princess waiting for him, like we expected him all along."

"You make it sound more impressive than it'll be," Oliver twiddled his fingers, "Princes and princesses are little more than figureheads to other countries. He could be insulted."

"Well," Sigrid took a sharp left off the cobbled street onto a narrow and winding path that led down to the fjord. The very same passage that Elsa had taken over a decade ago as she fled Arendelle. "We sure will find out, won't we?"

"Sigrid."

"I wonder what he'll be like. I picture horrendous scars, three eye patches, a peg leg, and a wickedly sharp hook for a hand."

"Sigrid, I've told you once and I'll tell you again," but Oliver stopped, frowning. "Wait, three eye patches?"

"He's got three eyes, duh."

"But then he'd be blind. That's ridiculous."

"Why can't a sea king be blind?" Sigrid chuckled, "Honestly I thought you'd be bothered more by the three eyes."

"That just goes beyond saying."

"If you say so."

They both stopped to watch a wheezing boy of perhaps seventeen dash his way up the main street that led to the Palace Gates, undoubtedly sent by his superiors to announce that King Fergison had arrived sooner than expected.

Sigrid made an amused snorting sound and continued on her way. With a start, Oliver realized that he was actually following her.

He halted. "I'm not coming with you. You'll embarrass the family. I won't be a part of that."

"You are your own man, Oliver brother," Sigrid called out without turning or breaking stride, "Perhaps next year when your whiskers start growing in you'll be man enough for independence."

Oliver was indignant. "This is my independence! I'm at liberty to refuse to follow you to utter ruin!"

"Oh yes, I believe you." Sigrid giggled churlishly, further aggravating her brother.

He watched her go for a few more seconds, privately cursing her obstinacy. "Why is she such a brat?" He muttered in a voice only he could hear. With a heaved sigh and a vow to exact revenge should anything go terribly, _terribly_ wrong, Oliver reluctantly followed his twin down to the docks, where King Fergison was making port.

. . .

They reached the docks five minutes before King Fergison. The fjord bustled with almost frantic activity. Sunburnt men rolled barrels up and down piers to load them onto a waiting merchant ship. Dockmaster Ire stared intently and anxiously at the longboat, whose swirling blue script on its starboard read _Éan Tapa._ 'Swift Bird' in the Snachtish tongue.

Winds from the sea dashed against Oliver's face, watering his hazel eyes as he and his sister stood upon the pier. He hadn't made many visits to the docks. He much preferred the warmth of his grandfather' study, with the reassuring weight of a thick book in his lap. Still, despite his discomfort, there was an exhilarating quality about this place. It made his heart race, and he found himself grinning despite his misgivings.

As the _Éan Tapa_ neared, Oliver could make out more details. The angular designs painted on the ship's shields were each a different array of colors, all dark and earthy. House Shields, they were. The proud colors and sigils of the greater and lesser Snachtish houses. The only sigil with an animal was King Fergison's, a cobalt bird with four wings, the backdrop a dark grey. The fabled Songling.

The ship itself held perhaps just over one hundred men, all shouting and jabbering in their dialects. Now that they were much closer, they could see the _Éan Tapa's_ bowsprit curling into a simple spiral at the end. Oliver was vaguely disappointed; he had expected a dragon's head.

The dockmen ignored the royal children as they went about their work. With a swift glance they seemed to be just a pair of runts watching the strange boat and the strange men. Many of them had never seen the royal twins, having just found work on the docks as the Imperial holiday neared. Tall and skeletal Dockmaster Ire, however, would surely recognize them, but for the moment he was arguing with a ship captain who was refusing to move his ported dinghys for the _Éan Tapa._ The Dockmaster was gesturing about wildly, and his spittle speckled the stubborn captain's face.

Within three more minutes, they could see the Snachtish men more clearly. One man, huge and red-bearded, stood almost upon the bowsprit and cupped his hands around his mouth as he yelled. "Ho there, wee city o' Arendelle!"

Oliver always thought that the Snachtish accent was a funny thing. He had met the Ambassador of Walpurgisnacht, a broad-shouldered, balding man with a disquieting stillness about him. Though Ambassador Earc Mac Muircheartaighs's voice was always low and soft, the accent had stood out vast in contrast with the Arendellans'.

He also found it amusing that the red-bearded man called Arendelle's city 'wee'. Though it was true, it being little more than a township, the Highlands by comparison had no cities at all. There was Baile Loch, a famous settlement upon vast lake Gaelach, but other than that Walpurgisnacht consisted of little more than longhouses and clusters of small and rustic buildings.

Together, the sailors aboard the _Éan Tapa_ began to sing. __

_'Twas down by Tuáthalán's white shores we strayed_

 _When the moon and the stars they were shining_

 _The moon shone its rays on her locks of raven hair_

 _And she swore she'd be my love forever._

 _It's not for the parting that my sister pains_

 _It's not for the grief of my mother_

 _'Tis all for the loss of my bonny Snachtish lass_

 _That my heart is breaking forever._

There was something old and lilting about the song, and while the sailors sung in various tuneless versions, there was a haunting beauty about it that dipped and rose in a lazy, hypnotic tide. Oliver found that he wanted to join them, to rock back and forth and sing that ballad, which was tinged with longing and bittersweetness.

"Wow," breathed Sigrid. Oliver nearly gave a start. He had forgotten she was there, as small and slim she was. Gone was her air-headedness, replaced by an almost daunted countenance. The men were many and large, and she had come to greet them all.

"You should go find mother," Oliver said to her softly, "She should be halfway through the city by now. I will stay."

For a moment, the prince thought that his sister might truly heed his words, but she expectedly refused, setting her jaw in a private affirmation.

Two dockmen pushed by the twins, toting a gangplank between them. "Scram, runts!" One of them said without sparing a glance in his haste. The dinghys had been pushed aside by long poles and the _Éan Tapa_ was soon upon them.

The red-bearded man who was still standing at the bow tossed a thick cord of rope, which was caught deftly by one dockman and tied snug round the pier's thick pole. Then the gangplank was set, and the sailors from Walpurgisnacht set their boots upon Arendelle.

Only a handful of them crossed the gangplank. Their faces were leathery and crusted from years under the sun, and all of them wore fur cloaks of different animals. The first man, whose cloak was a wolf hide, was particularly impressive-looking. Tall, broad, and thick-bearded, he hardly spared the royal children a glance. _That must be him_ , thought Oliver. The histories had no portrait of the chief-king. He had become the Walpurgisnacht king just two years ago.

"I said scram!" The dockman from before made to grab Sigrid, but halted in astonished horror when Oliver turned to face him. He'd recognized him as the Prince and Heir Apparent of Arendelle. "My lord Oliver?" He looked back down at Sigrid, releasing her arm as though he had been burned and repeatedly bowing in alarmed apologies.

At this, the wolf-cloaked man stopped and glanced sharply down at them, as if he had just noticed the royal twins. His handsome face split into a gracious grin, bowing low and deep. "It is my honor to behold the famous royal twins of Arendelle. I am Siollán Ó Scannail."

Oliver realized as he and Sigrid bowed in return who exactly these men were; King Fergison's honor guard.

"Likewise, Ser Ó Scannail," Oliver's pronunciation was impeccable, "We've been been looking forward to your arrival." _Although we've just heard of it not two hours ago._

"Ser?" Siollán barked a laugh, "I'm no knight, milord. Simply a man bound to his king's service."

"Speaking of whom," Oliver skimmed by his surprise and embarrassment of the mistake and craned his neck, seeking out any hint of royalty among them. "I look forward to meet King Fergison."

The honor guard, Cúchulainn's Hand, if his memory proved correct, was conversing amongst themselves in murmurs. Many among them seemed disgruntled, hard eyes scanning the docks and examining the royal twins. Were they insulted that the queen had not shown? Surely they knew of their early arrival.

"I am afraid we can't oblige," Siollán's smile was no less gracious, "Please don't take this as an insult, milord. Many people want my king dead, and there are many people here. He will reveal himself when-,"

" _Nochtfaidh mé_ ," a piercing, rasping voice cut in.

Siollán immediately turned about. His body blocked the twins from who he addressed. " _Athsmheas a dhéanamh_."

" _Anois,_ " the voice said with finality. A command.

Oliver thought for a moment that Siollán might continue to argue, for he wavered with dissent. But he finally clapped a fist over his heart. " _Tá, mo thairna_."

He stepped aside to reveal King Fergison.

He appeared to be one of the honor guards, with a simple fur cloak draped over his shoulders and the _Srathán_ broach clasped there, an ivory sun with nine points. It was a disguise, his true house _Farannaín._ His brown hair was shorter than the men's who surrounded him, pushed back out of his face, and he would have been handsome if not for those parallel scars maiming a pale face, one eye white and milky. His beard was dark and scraggly, longer at the chin, and he was a finger shorter than his shortest man.

Altogether unimpressive, however imposing. He looked like he had seen his share of battle. Walpurgisnacht was indeed once a war-torn land.

King Fergison stared down at the royal twins for a moment, then his gaze shifted over the docks. "What are your names?" He asked without looking

Oliver thought this quite rude, but made no comment. Did he truly not know who they were, or was this a test? Oliver decided that he rather disliked the king. "I am Prince Oliver of Arendelle, and this is Princess Sigrid, my sister."

Sigrid said nothing, looking small and meek in her regret for making this venture.

"Where are your guards? Your parents?" King Fergison fixed them with a look, and it was at that moment that Oliver knew that the king was a father. A look like that could come from none other, and the twins had seen it many times displayed by their own father, Kristoff Bjorgman. A gentle suspicion.

"It was my fault," Sigrid blurted suddenly, "I mean," she drew herself to her full, miniscule height, chin lifted, "It was my initiative to come down to the docks to greet you, King Fergison. Your early arrival had surprised us."

She offered no flavoring or flattery, perfectly professional. Oliver felt a twinge of pride for his sister. She was handling this well.

The king seemed to have also privately noted this, for the corners of his eyes crinkled. "I can't tell if this is responsible or irresponsable, so I will let your mother decide." He nodded behind them.

Both twins turned to find their mother setting the soft leathers of her boots on the docks, flanked by two palace guards. She had spotted them, her face growing red with either rage or embarrassment. The queen wore a dress of gorgeous deep oranges and gold trimmings, with a black corselette that depicted swirling, windy designs. She was an image of simple elegance, an Autumn beauty, freckled and lovely, and currently flushed with scarcely-concealed anger. Oh yes, they were certainly in a pit of trouble. The docks can sometimes be an unsavory place, despite the kind and quaint township it bordered, and to go without guards had indeed been unwise. Oliver cursed his foolishness. In his haste to follow Sigrid and be sure she didn't fall to trouble, he had forgotten to gather a guard or two.

King Fergison chuckled as the queen approached. "I wouldn't be so sure of your chances o' having a good rest-of-day."

Oliver burned, mortified.

When Queen Anna reached him, she took one brief moment to appraise her children. Her anger was as present as the sun that made her auburn hair glow, blue eyes bright with a whole churning pool of emotions. They were always like that. His mother was an open book, forthright and brimmed with passion. That is why she was beautiful. And terrifying.

Her attention moved from them to behold the king, smile drawn tight, failing to hide her weariness. "King Fergison," she curtsied, "You are so ugly that I wouldn't have recognized you if not for that horrible beard."

The king bowed, "Stunning as always, Queen Anna."

 _They know each other?_ Oliver looked from one to the other in a mix of befuddlement and surprise. They stared at each other for a length of time, and just as Oliver thought the quiet could not grow any more unbearable, King's Fergison's scarred face split into a broad grin. He was missing a tooth, but it was genuine and warm. Queen Anna was smiling back, and she stepped closer, hand on her children's shoulders.

"Oliver, Sigrid. Fergison here saved Aunt Elsa's life at the Battle of Barbarians two years ago. She had been struck by an arrow, and Fergison had protected her body and fended off the enemy."

Oliver was speechless in his newfound awe of the man, but Sigrid's mouth immediately ran rampant. "Is that where you got those scars?"

"Oh these?" King Fergison touched one, "No, lass. This is from me late wife Mairin when I came home with a bastard son."

Anna gasp and slapped her hands over Sigrid's ears. "Fergison!"

A loud laugh rose from his belly, and he tucked his thumbs into his belt. "I jest! Go' these from old Dubhóg two years ago. Damned beast near took me ear off along with me face."

"Dubhóg?" Sigrid breathed, pushing her mother's hands away.

"Aye," King Fergison bent low to match her height, "One of the chief-lords had this right mighty bear for a pet. Senán underfed the poor brute for the battle." He leaned in closer, "She was tossing men 'round like dolls."

"Did you get it?" Sigrid was completely and totally enraptured by his tale.

King Fergison's eyes glossed over as his mind was taken someplace else, recollecting the event. "Aye, I got her, lass." He remained in that position for a moment, vacant and unseeing, until he abruptly sniffed and stood upright.

"And he lived happily ever after, yes," Anna guided her daughter away, "Now let's get out of this breeze before my children catch a cold. I trust lodgings have been arranged, Fergison?"

"Aye," the king joined them as they made for the main docks, "The crew is happy to have warm beds and plenty food for a change. Though I hope they don't get soft and fat over their stay."

"I was talking about you, Fergison," said Anna.

"Oh yes," The king faltered as though he hadn't considered this, "Lodgings arranged, yes."

"King Fergison," Queen Anna stopped suddenly to face him, "You are going to be staying in the palace, as is fit for an honored guest of your stature, and your guards will all have suitable accommodations."

Murmurs from behind them. Cúchulainn's Hand sounded pleased by this.

"I hope my ward is also welcome," King Fergison said, knowing of course she was, as he turned to gesture behind them.

The honor guard split like a sea against a sorcerer's staff, and the most beautiful girl in all the world was revealed to Prince Oliver. Her hair was the most splendid shade of red he had ever seen, gathered in an intricate braid that wrapped around into a delicate bun. Her face was soft and pale, flushed from the mid-autumn sun, and extraordinarily pretty. From under rainstorm lashes gazed eyes of the most striking blue he had ever seen. He was smitten, then and there, by some god or goddess he did not know. He simply stared stupidly at the girl, as though all wit had left his mind, and color inched into his cheeks.

The girl curtsied haltingly, "My Queen Anna," she said in a quiet and honeyed voice, without the Snachtish accent, "Prince Oliver, Princess Sigrid." She greeted them. She was shy as a young maiden would be in a strange new land. Oliver just smiled, for it was all he could do. Sigrid, although she returned the curtsy (which looked odd without skirts), seemed for whatever reason put-off by the girl.

"Hello there," Anna sounded mildly surprised, "Fergison, I didn't know you had taken a ward."

"I introduce Lady Eilise Ophossis of House Farannáin," The king placed his hand upon her shoulder, with love present in his eyes.

"Your first name is Snatchish, but your surname is Attolian," noted Queen Anna inquisitively.

The maiden glanced at her guardian, as though seeking approval. He nodded slightly in assurance.

"I was conceived at war," she said, "My father was Atollian and my mother is hails from Walpurgisnacht."

The Three-Week War, when the late Attolian king Apollos had taken his army to aid Walpurgisnacht in a clash of houses. This made Eilise two years Oliver's senior, fourteen. The king had hoped to gain lands in Walpurgisnacht in return for his aid, but such an ambition never became true 'till twelve years hence, when Fergison had claimed the Houses under his banner, _Farannaín_. But it was not Apollos to whom he had bowed, but Oliver's aunt.

They made idle talk on their way back to the palace. King Fergison seemed content to have remained in silence, but Sigrid would not have it. She assailed him with battle inquiries, and the king obliged, never failing to add the grotesque happenings of war. Queen Anna did not seem to mind so much, taking some amusement in the man's dramatic additions to tales that would have been dull otherwise.

Oliver remained silent, all too aware of the king's ward who quietly walked beside him. She was an inch taller than he was, and she'd spare him sidelong glances as though judging his person. Oliver tried to remain calm under her fleeting scrutinies, plodding ahead and occupying his mind with hopes that he and his sister had evaded punishment.

But just as they were leaving the docks, Oliver abruptly stopped. A hot wind, no a _scorching_ wind pushed against his back and tousled his hair. He turned sharply, hazel eyes darting about. What could that be?

"Are you well?" Asked Eilise. Everybody else had moved along save two of Cúchulainn's Hand, who eyed Oliver.

The prince stayed that way for a lingering moment, locked in an almost horrified stare. But then he suddenly blinked, as though pulling from a deep reverie. "Huh?" He looked at Eilise, traces of vacancy left in his expression, as though but half of his mind was elsewhere.

"I asked if you were okay," The king's ward gave a polite smile, traced with hints of amusement of the prince's antics. "You nearly startled me, my prince."

"Oh, yes." He blinked again, this time returning entirely, "Of course I'm okay."

But as they resumed their walk to the palace, Oliver yet again glanced back to the fjord. It was a ridiculous thing, what he had seen. A mere trick of the mind. No more than lack of sleep. Perhaps Able was right. Perhaps he should spend his nights asleep in his bed. What he had seen was gone in a blink, as though it never happened. His mind was simply playing some cruel contrivance on him.

For he had seen, if not for a moment, that the harbor was aflame.

 **. . .**

 **Chapter Index**

 **Cúchulainn's Hand (** coo **-** huh **-** lann's hand **) -** King Fergison's honor guard, consisting of capable warriors from each of the Snatchish Houses. **Cúchulainn** was a hero passed into legend, his feats deemed mythological and awe-inspiring. Legend tells that he had once saved all of Walpurgisnacht, having perished in the battle.

 **Bonny Snachtish Lass -** A sad ballad oft sung in Walpurgisnacht, even on jolly occasions. It honors the old chief-lord Mochta Ó Labhradha **(** mok **-** tuh oh lah **-** bragh **-** dah **)** who wrote the song on his deathbed of an unnamed woman who had rejected his affections, choosing instead a shepherd boy. Love is beheld as a sacred thing in Snachtish culture, and non-mutual affections are considered great tragedies.

 **. . .**

**Character Index**

 **Able (** ae-bl **) -** **Able** had served the Arendelle family for generations, since the age of six. King Ragnar, father of king Agnarr, had freed **Able** and a few dozen other Haruudians aboard a slave ship bound for Bholevna, a slave nation across the Fog Sea. The Haruudian people are an incredibly superstitious folk, and viewed Ragnar as their _Moschaich_ **(** mo - sk - eye - ick **)** _,_ the Haruudian word for messiah. They vowed themselves to Ragnar's service, each and every one of them. King Ragnar, befuddled, dismissed their vows and declared them a free people. Nonetheless, these Haruudians drafted themselves into the Arendelle military as prized medics. **Able** became a servant of the palace, and has been there ever since.

 **Lieutenant Bror (** br - or **) -** A lieutenant in the Arendelle navy fleet, **Bror** had failed to pay Ice Master Kristoff on one delivery. Kristoff waved this off, and instead had Bror repay him not by money, but by finally teaching his daughter Sigrid how to use a sword. **Bror** has thus far proven himself to be a poor teacher, failing to note Sigrid's strengths. Perhaps he should gather the money to pay that Ice Master back, the princess is unmoldable!

 **Conor McCoy -** Minister of Ships and trusted advisor of Queen Anna. Kristoff, however, distrusts the man, and has ordered Olaf to keep a close eye on him.

 **Dockmaster Ire (** eye - r **)** **-** The spent master of the docks. He manages the many ships that come and go in the Arendelle fjord-harbor. He is particularly busy at this time of year, the days just before the Festival of Five. Tall, painfully thin, and gaunt in the face, his countenance resembles that of a skeleton.

 **Ambassador Earc Mac Muircheartaigh (** airk **-** mak **-** mwurr **-** hurt **-** tig **) -** Ambassador of Walpurgisnacht. He hails from the _Sruthán_ House, one of the more vicious Snachtish Houses. He is one of the few Snachtish warriors who wears armor.

 **Eilise Ophossis** **(** ee **-** ill **-** eess aw **-** oh **-** sis **) -** The beautiful ward of King Fergison, treated as his own daughter. She seems a delicate soul, and has suffered great tragedies in her young past.

 **Ellard Bjornid** **(** ell **-** ard byorn **-** id **) -** The thoughtful Minister of Trade for Arendelle.

 **Prince Oliver Frode -** The prince of Arendelle, **Oliver** is unlike most boys, just like his sister is unlike most girls. He dresses elegantly, plays the violin (whilst most northern bards favor the more traditional flute or nyckelharpa), and enjoys reading the many books of the Arendelle Palace Library. A learned boy who loves his education, he is said to someday become a shrewd diplomat. However, his mother claims he is too gentle for politics, and steers him clear

 **Selvig Balor -** The Minister of Coin, old and fat and very nearly deaf, the question of his aptitude has been arising around the court. There is one thing he does prove apt at, however. He can drink that wine down right quick!

 **Siollán Ó Scannail (** see **-** oh **-** lon oh scahn **-** ill) **-** The captain of King Fergison's honor guard. Handsome and broad, the royal twins had first thought him to be the king himself.

 **Spøkelse (** spoke **-** else **)** In the Northern dialect, **Spokelse** means ghost. Silent and watchful, the owl is a trained messenger of the High Queen.

 **Princess Sigrid Frode -** She's a small girl, which makes it a wonder how she can contain such a temper. Some will say she can't. Ever since she could walk, **Sigrid** wanted to fight. She dueled verbally with her brother, a battle of wits they often tied, and she would get in many fights with the other noble children. Cheeky, brusque, and openly disobedient to the queen, she is any lady-trainer's worst nightmare.

 **Mentioned Geography**

 **Zellucia (** zell-oosh-uh **) -** The desert kingdom east of the Blightlands and bordering Attolia, separated only by a narrow sea known as the Blaque Strait. Swords curve there, and slavery is the lucrative business. Daemona are openly worshipped by **Zellucians** , and Nebet, the boy ruler, is said to be growing a vast army. Though it's just a rumor, even High Queen Elsa herself concedes that **Zellucia** and the ambitious king may grow to be a true rival of Imperium.

 **Haruud (** ha - rood **) -** The lost civilization of a scientific people. They can often be mistaken for Zellucians for their dark skin and eyes, but **Haruudians** bear nobler, stronger features. Once every ten years, a **Haruudian** is born with golden eyes. These _Ulpa la-Inya_ **(** oolpuh - luh - eenyuh **)** _,_ Blessed, are raised from birth as great masters of medicine, believed to have been chosen by the Sun God Boame **(** b - ohm **)** to bring healing and peace wherever they go.

 **Tuáthalán (** too **-** aw **-** thuh **-** lon **) -** The sheer cliffs in Walpurgisnacht that shore the Fog Sea. They are hollowed out by catacombs made long ago by great wyrms of the deep, and it's only through them that one can reach the harbor. Either that or the 500-foot drop. It is an impregnable fortress, never once breached, and manned by fierce Snachtish warriors.

 **Bonus Material**

 **Author's Note -** I've loosely based Walpurgisnacht on Old Irish culture. Many ballads and shanties sung by the Snachtish people are true Irish folk songs that I've come to adore in my studies. Walpurgisnacht itself is taken from the German Holiday 'Walpurgis Night', which is also known as 'Saint's Day'.

'Bonny Snachtish Lass' is essentially the folk song 'Bonny Irish Lass', with a few changes in the lyrics. Go look it up! I love it.


	3. Chapter 3

**(A/N):** This took much longer than I thought it would, but I think the outcome is suitable enough for release. Chapter 3 underwent four rewrites, but this version I liked most.

 **Trigger Warnings:** Vague sexual content, some foul language (Shit, godsdamn), and **g a y**

 **Chapter III**

" _As She held his face, the cold of Her fingertips burned his flesh. They were too far off for me to hear what She said to him, but when She finished, the failed usurper bowed his head. He trembled. There would be no mercy for him."_ \- Arendellan soldier on recollection of The Siege of Midlehan, the fourth day of conquering The Southern Isles

 **. . .**

 **Ulrich Westergaard did not much like the Throne.**

Of course, as Secretary of the Archives and close advisor to the High Queen, it was not the Throne in which he sat. His chair was lower and on the floor, level with the attendants and supplicants of the court. The Throne sat on a platform, three wide steps from the marble floor and above all but the pillars that bore the ceiling of the vast chamber.

A chamber which was now cold and empty.

Although Ulrich disliked the Throne, he lounged on his chair as though it were one. Contemplative and still, he considered Imperium.

Since the High Queen's departure from Blys, he had been placed to rule in her stead, and despite the vastness of Imperium and her many, many subjects, it was tedious labor. He much preferred the discrete nature of his unofficial business. Too long had he sat at this chair, seemingly for days at a time, wearily filtering through the Voice of the People. Harvest season had come and gone, an influx of stock had filled pantries and kitchens across all of the Southern Isles. Ulrich, even as he did the High Queen's bidding, felt like he had wasted the season on his makeshift throne. Since he had taken the duty of Steward of Blys, his unofficial work had been forced to be placed on standby.

Uniform footsteps clicked down the long chamber. The throne room—which sometimes served also as a ballroom and reception chamber—was so often full that Ulrich had forgotten how loud the acoustics were. He lifted his gaze to the form of Lugh Lafhamada, the Minister of War, who stopped several feet from Ulrich to observe him silently.

"You've heard from Her Grace?" Asked Lugh.

Ulrich had not watched Lugh's approach. Instead, he studied a mosaic on the wall: the Return of Lucres, the Angel of Light from Attolian theology. He rose above his bowing subjects, arms open wide and dressed only in a white sash bound about his hips. Ulrich never knew why he was drawn to Lucres in particular.

"This afternoon. The bird nearly took my arm off."

Even as they spoke softly, their voices still echoed.

When the Secretary of the Archives said nothing else, Lugh crossed his arms in a failed attempt to conceal impatience. "And?"

Ulrich leaned his head against the chair's high back. "Her Grace's army has left the Blightlands and is en route to Attolia. Demestrias, specifically."

"So, success, then."

Arms spread complacently. "It appears so."

"At what cost?"

Ulrich dropped his arms. "None."

Lugh was quiet for a moment. Much like Ulrich, he was a quiet man. He lowered himself to sit on the second step that led to the throne, which loomed behind him. "And how did she manage that?"

"You know the answer. I do, and I know little of war."

"There was no battle."

"Instead, a duel."

"Between leaders?"

"Yes."

Lugh thought of the one time he saw the High Queen fight. She was practiced, careful, and very well trained. Perhaps a bit extravagant, but that much was to be expected. Tulio, her trainer, did call himself a sword-dancer. Lugh had only ever heard word of mouth of how the Blightland warlord fought. The stories were not comforting.

"If Her Grace was dead, I think we all would know by now," said the Minister of War.

"If she were dead, I would have postponed the news for as long as I could." He would've collected his resources, removed the most violent barons from the board—his board—and invest a massive portion of his wealth to the Imperial Military. A military suddenly without pay and without a leader. He would not claim the throne but would bribe or blackmail many courtiers into voting for whoever he chose as an heir — all to avoid a civil war that could potentially decimate the entire continent. The High Queen named no one yet as her successor. Not even her sister. Ulrich knew as well as she did that becoming High Queen of Imperium would surely kill Anna Frode.

Lugh rubbed his hands together, letting his shoulders sag. He was tired. As was Ulrich, though the Secretary was less prone to betraying such.

"When should we expect her arrival?"

"I estimate by next week." His estimations were oft correct. "After the festival."

"Sooner than expected." Lugh scratched his bristly chin. "She's leaving the company, then. The military will march to Demestrias or whatever city-state best suits its needs, then return home. Is she leaving her double in place with the army?"

Ulrich didn't answer. Lifting his head, Lugh saw that the man had twisted his head around to scrutinize the war minister. The Westergaard was a slender man, mustached and auburn-haired, with eyes that penetrated all that they perceived. Bright eyes, pale green, they bore into Lugh. Privately, Lugh wondered if the man had any companions.

Guessing his thoughts, Ulrich crept his thin lips into a slow smile. "Forgive my staring, minister. We do not often talk."

"Yet we both know who the other is."

"We will never know who the other is. Not to our barest bones, I believe." Ulrich looked away, assuming again his guise of boredom.

"That's awfully poetic." Lugh knitted his fingers and unknitted them. After a moment he said, "She has grown increasingly interested in the east, hasn't she?"

Ulrich didn't answer.

"Yes. Zellucia. Or what's left of it," Lugh said. "A new king has been declared, I recall. A boy, no older than twelve. He calls himself the new Sun God."

Ulrich didn't look at Lugh.

"It's strange what fear does to people," mused the war minister. "I knew a man: Pol. The Head of a Snatchish House. In his later years, he was convinced that one, if not a few, of his sons were conspiring against him. He fathered many sons, which meant many of them would never have access to his wealth. Particularly his bastards."

Ulrich listened. His mind was often fractured into various interests: word from his eyes and ears spread across the continent, a scheduled meeting, or what he might have for dinner. But tonight, Lugh had his singular attention.

"One bastard boy held the most suspicion. The youngest, Êon, I think. Went by Ee. He was a clever boy, quick-tongued and mischevious to a fault. 'If anybody would betray me,' I remember him saying, 'it would be my bastard Ee.' Ee was twelve or thirteen. Barely a man."

"Pol killed him?"

"That would have been obvious to the whole village if he did," Lugh told him. "The penalty for murder is drowning. You're bound to a pole-hands and feet-and pushed under the water. When the pole stops shaking, we know that you're dead."

"And so he framed the boy of a crime?"

"Ee already had a foul reputation as a troublemaker around the village. It was not rare to find the people howling for his blood. He would steal prized possessions and place them at the altars of Clíodhna and Lir as offerings."

When material possessions are offered unto the gods and placed into the offering bowls before their altars, they cannot be retrieved lest you risk offending the gods. It was a custom shared between Attolia and Walpurgisnacht. Ulrich, a pragmatic man, had never done it. Then again, he was neither Attolian nor Snatchish.

At the grand entrance of the throne room, a Palace Guard entered. If he saw Ulrich and Lugh, both excessively powerful men of the Imperial Court, he did not show it. All that resounded was the click of his oiled boots as he made his paces and left them behind, gun resting against his epaulet.

"Laughlin was a big and stupid boy, perfect for Pol." Lugh rubbed his hands together again. A tick, Ulrich supposed. "Ghos was not a wealthy village. Our prime export was fish, with people I believe had the brains of fish. When I finally left," Lugh detoured, grinning at the memory, "I never wanted to see another dace, trout, or eel ever again. Anywho, Pol had one of his servants tell Laughlin that Ee had seduced his sister. Fínola was the village beauty. I think she still is. Well, you could imagine Laughlin's outrage. That boy was very easily manipulated, you see, and already disliked clever little Ee."

"He never waited 'till privacy?" Ulrich knew the answer before Lugh's nodded confirmation. "He wasn't worried about attacking the son of a powerful man?"

"Ee was a bastard. Bastards, even to lords, are forfeit to the family." Lugh tapped his own chest. "I am a bastard. I do not have my own father's name. Rare is it to find a bastard accepted by his father and family. It's as though being born is our own fault." He shrugged, noncommittal. "I would not be where I am if Her Grace shared the same view of bastards. We have the late Agnar and Iduna to thank for that. Gods rest their souls."

Ulrich swiveled his head to peer at Lugh. Seldom were there any mentions of the High Queen's passed parents in the court.

"Laughlin attacked Ee. Dragged him to the town's square and broke his body. I saw it with my own eyes." Lugh tugged at his sleeves. "While I did nothing. I was," his eyes rolled up as he did the math, "Sixteen, I believe, and very capable. Looking at Ee, then, as he leaned against the town fountain and gasped around the blood running from his nose and brow, I thought he was going to die." He shrugged again. "I would have done nothing then, either. No, Laughlin finished with a final blow, spat an oath, and left poor Ee at the fountain."

"So he was framed," said Ulrich. He finished the story for Lugh, "Pol had Laughlin murdered that night. Since his attack on Ee was so public, everybody knew it must've been the bastard."

"Ee was drowned the very next week. The only one to weep was gentle Fínola."

"All this to remove one youngest son, all this for presumptions?"

"Like I said," Lugh reminded him, "fear does strange things to people. Particularly to people in power."

Ulrich let the statement sink in, knowing precisely of who Lugh meant.

"Your late brother does you no favors," said Lugh. "I haven't been a member of this court for very long, and even I have heard his name whispered in corners like a curse. I wonder, as must Her Grace," the war minister leaned forward, fingers knit again, "just how different Ulrich Westergaard must be from Hans Westergaard?"

Ulrich knew then just how dangerous this Minister of War could be. He was mistaken to have ruled him off as just another soldier beset in gold medals. Lugh had crawled from nothing, but he would return to nothing never again.

Ulrich thought of Hans, his brother who went to such terrible lengths to achieve power and privilege. Out of all his brothers, Ulrich had gotten along best with the youngest. They had very similar minds, ambitious minds. Only Ulrich had been smarter, more patient.

He had cried when High Queen Elsa ordered Hans's execution. It had not been a public thing; Her Grace hadn't wanted to give Hans the satisfaction of being remembered by the history books. He had not even seen it happen.

"I've held no ill will against the High Queen," said Ulrich to Lugh, who was standing from where he sat. "I have no illusions of who my brother truly was."

"Did you love him?"

Muscles tensed in Ulrich's jaw. He was very familiar with the game Lugh was playing, and he would have no part in it. After a space of four breaths, the Secretary of the Archives and Master of Spies averted his gaze to look again at the mosaics. Lucres held a flame in his hand and presented it dramatically to his supplicants, his ageless face serene and loving. If the gods are real, Ulrich thought, they are not like that.

"Lafhamada, let me be very clear. Are you listening?"

"Closely."

"You may question my loyalty as much as you like. But the moment you sow doubt among these barons and among the White Court and threaten the stability of the state, you are my enemy. And, minister, I think you know very well I am an enemy you do not want."

Threats unspoken hung in the air and simmered. Above them in an overlooking balcony, a skilled marksman had his longbow trained on the Minister of War since he had entered the room. Just a raised hand from Ulrich and an arrow would be planted in Lugh's head. Ulrich thought of informing Lugh of his weapon but reined in the desire of flaunting. Weapons are most useful when they are unseen. Best to hold his cards close. Best to make them believe they are safe.

Lugh looked undisturbed. Ulrich expected as much.

"The stability of the state is essential to me, you must realize," said Ulrich, "any and all who threaten it and Her Grace, well, they don't live terribly long lives. Have I made myself clear?"

Silence passed between them for a time. Finally, Lugh smiled, lifting both hands as though he sought to calm a rabid animal. "You misunderstand me, Secretary. We have the same interests. I just needed confirmation of your loyalty, out of personal security. You passed with straight grades, friend."

"I am glad." He was not.

"So am I. I like you." Lugh turned to leave. When he reached the door, Ulrich called out to him.

"What became of Pol?"

Lugh faced the Secretary. The aftermath of his grin still wrinkling his features, he said mildly, "He choked on poison the next day. He had the wrong bastard killed."

Then he left. Ulrich watched him go, before regarding again the Return of Lucres and the fire he presented to his worshippers.

 **. . .**

The silence around her was a gift, and she took refuge in it. For this brief time, she did not need to move or speak, did not need to tease apart the truth from lying lips, did not need to justify her action or inaction. Her scholar found no such refuge in stillness. He preferred to pace. She had seen it often enough already, back and forth, muttering and citing words forgotten. But he could be still as well, as apt in stifling movement as in moving, as silent as sunlight on stone.

He knew that the stillness was near as she could come to peace, and he offered it to her. The world around them provided no such thing. Autumn leaves were losing their vibrancy as they desperately clung to the bones of their birches, and the grasses were becoming dull, dead and gray. The wind robbed Elsa of the stillness she craved, but as she looked over the far-off woodlands and witnessed their timeless dance, it was not entirely displeasing to her.

The world flowed by at a leisure pace set by the River Seperchia. The riverboat was large enough for Elsa and her subjects: a portion of the Queen's Guard, her attendants who wrapped themselves in blankets and played riddle games, and the Queen's Scholar, Eugenides. He sat across from her, sifting through his papers and scribbling notes. Feeling his Queen's eyes on him, his pen paused to hover just over the paper. "What is it?"

Elsa cupped her chin and looked away, shaking her head. She was stressed; it easy to tell. Her scholar often could read her in ways others couldn't. "Are you having doubts?"

"About?"

Elsa's eyes flicked to him, then away again. "Our expedition, Gen."

The sound of pen scraping paper resumed. "Of course I am."

"Your concerns?"

Resigned to the inevitable conference, the scholar let the pen drop. He organized the papers in his lap, tossing them atop the low table sitting between them. "There is the matter of integration. The Vhagn have no form of currency, we'd need coin masters to teach them the concept, which the Vhagn might reject. There is the matter of lan; which barons might be willing to sacrifice their fields and pastures for four thousand immigrants. There is the social spectrum to consider. Bigotry, racism, segregation, a lot of which would originate in your very own court. The Vhagn would need to learn to work soil and grow stock. Taxes would need to be raised, to fund the integration and give the Vhagn livestock, seed, tools, wood, coal, iron, and masters of trade. I could go on."

The High Queen didn't move or speak while her scholar let burst his misgivings.

"This will cost us dearly, Elsa," Eugenides softened his voice when he said the name of the Queen.

A heron dipped its foot into the bank waters of the Seperchia, its long neck curling back as it tensed for a strike. Elsa watched as the heron's long beak broke the waters and impaled a trout, fluttered away with its dinner. Only when it was a speck in the horizon did the High Queen find her words. "What else could I do?" Hopelessness tinged her voice.

It was not a question of what else could be done. What could be done and what else _she_ could do were two polarizing conundrums. They could leave the Vhagn to their devices, let them wallow in their ash and within another decade, perish under it. Imperium would not be affected and all would resume as though nothing at all occurred. But it was not in the Queen's nature to let something like that happen. It was not in her bones.

Eugenides sighed, pushing bony fingers through silvery curls. "I don't know."

The Vhagn would not immediately leave their home. Word must first be sent across Attolia to the city garrisons, informing them that the Blightlanders are no longer a hostile threat. Elsa must also mark their route through Attolia and to Blys, and she wondered how difficult it would be to place them on ships.

Elsa rose to stand at the boat's prow. Integration was never simple, and she was not fool enough to think it be. She would make many enemies on this endeavor. Taxes may have to be raised; she hadn't yet studied the numbers. She would have to get to that promptly, but now she wished to savor the silence and the river. If she didn't, she might lose what sanity was left to her.

She opened her eyes, feeling the cool breezes on her cheeks, and gazed fondly over sprawling Attolia. When Elsa had directed her company through the Sea of Olives and along the coastal farmlands, the barley fields had danced gold in the wind. Now on her return from the dystopia, the barley was cut fresh by hand and sickle.

Ahead there was a bend in the Seperchia. Sugarcane began in batches and then became rows along the bank, and so thick their numbers that Elsa had not seen the man until they were almost upon him.

He sat atop a red toadstool the size of a tree stump, his hat's brim hiding his eyes. Elsa could see a white-bearded jaw that gnawed at the end of a fine oak pipe. When the boat neared, the old man lifted his head. Spotting the beautiful pale woman standing at the boat's prow, he took his pipe in his hand and raised it in greeting.

"A fine afternoon, my lady!" he called out to her.

The boat flew no Imperial Flags so to travel in discretion. There was no way the old riverman could know this woman he addressed ruled this country and everything west, north, and south of it.

Elsa waved at him, smiling pleasantly. "Indeed it is, sir! What brings you to the Seperchia? Are you well?"

He had no gathering bags, nor any tools for harvesting the sugarcane. The next and closest village was the river-town Lethe, half a day's further ride. With no horse or wagon, it could easily take this man days to reach the township.

"Just admiring the waters, my lady!" the old man called jovially as Viggo Woll, the Queen's Guard Captain, joined the High Queen at the prow. "You just caught me deep in thought, but I'm almost done now."

"Can we convey you anyplace?" asked Elsa. "It's a long way to anywhere."

The old man blinked. "My, you are a kind one, young lady. That is rare these days. There's no need, thank you. Please don't fuss over me. I do like to keep my old legs strong."

"What is your name I can remember you by?" Elsa walked down the boat's length, hand trailing the railing as they began to pass the old man.

"Clovis is the name given to me. And you?"

Captain Viggo interjected. "This is Her Grace Herself, High Queen of Imperium."

"Really?" The old man didn't rise, but dipped his head in a deep nod, "Forgive me; I have not met many queens—or kings—around here. Quite the handful of sniveling barons, though."

Elsa smiled. It was real, and it felt nice against her cheeks. "Remember me as Elsa, Clovis." She opened her hand and let drift from it a single snowflake. It danced on the breezes, young and spritely, and alit on Clovis's open palm.

Dumbfounded, the old man watched the retreating boat and the white lady standing on it. She was on his mind for the rest of the day.

When the sun dipped in the west and colored the sky with strokes of gold fire, the riverboat made port at Lethe. Baron Erondites—a round, pudgy man with a big red nose—was as delighted to have them as he was flustered. Elsa could smell his perspiration mixed with his perfume, both equally potent, but declined to mention it. She and her subjects were treated well in Erondites's halls, with succulent venison and soft bread served for dinner and soft music played by the local harpist. Coincidentally, the Queen and her company had arrived at Lethe the day before a much anticipated dueling tourney. Duelists and wealthy viewers dined with the Queen in Erondites's hall, pleased by the surprise of her presence and all begging that she stay to watch the tourney. Smiling, Elsa conceded to accept, resulting in cheers throughout the hall.

Her sleep was sparse and restless that night, but she did manage some precious hours, and in those hours came dreams. Dreams of scalding winds, binding ribbons, and a boy who wept.

. . .

She woke in the night, damp and feverish, and stared up at the ceiling. Breaths coming in short gasps through a throat dry and parched, her nightmare lingered like a shadow in her mind. She touched her throat, as though the ribbons still strangled her.

Elsa left her bed, a white-blue nightgown of her own design clinging to her hips comfortably. Her youngest attendant, a Southern girl named Isolde, was awake on her shift and was quick to supply her Queen with a glass of water. Elsa thanked her, assuring her that the girl should sleep and that she would walk the halls. When Isolde fidgeted her stress, Elsa lied she would have a guard accompany her. Looking tired and relieved, Isolde retired with a curtsey.

Erondites and his family were avid hunters. Stuffed game stood in the corners and mounted heads snarled high from the walls where sculptures or amphoras would have been. Elsa, battle-seasoned as she was, could not help but find discomfort in the glass eyes that followed her. She'd hunted with her men out of necessity before, but never for game.

She walked by candlelight. It was the hour of night when the torches began to dim before the house Guard made their rounds to replace them. Unlike the Palace of Arendelle and the Pale Keep of Blys, the Dite Manse had few paintings. Elsa would stop to admire when she'd come upon any rarely stationed piece. Attolia had been home to many talented artists, some more well known than others.

A kindly old lady, hands folded neatly, smiled at Elsa. She was framed by the doorway and backlit by sunlight, and behind her, one could glimpse pastures and trees. A little boy stood at her side, hiding his face, and Elsa wondered if the artist had anybody in mind when they painted the child. Any odd thing could inspire an artist. It was a storybook from childhood that inspired her Ice Palace on the North Mountain.

So absorbed was she by the painting, that she hadn't heard the light footsteps of a woman rounding the corner.

Suddenly confronted by the form of the High Queen, the woman gasped her fright and let fly her hand to bosom. Elsa turned to face her, her own hand still outstretched to feel the paint strokes of the portrait. She quirked a slender brow at the stranger, curious to why someone else might be up and about at such an hour. "Hello."

The stranger, a young woman whose olive skin seemed aglow in the candlelight, took another breath and laughed a little. She was beautiful, Elsa was beginning to notice. Very beautiful. Her hair was black and curled, and her eyes were dark amber jewels. Elsa realized, then, that she was not Attolian. Nor was she Trosti, who were also dark of complexion. This woman, this stunning, nervous woman, was Zellucian. She could see it in the shape of her eyes and in the curve of her cheekbones.

"My apologies, Your Grace," she breathed around soft, shaking embarrassment. She had an Attolian accent, her R's rolling exotically. "You startled me."

"No," Elsa pulled away from the elderly lady and her timid child, "No, it's okay. I was just," she rose her half-empty glass, "getting a glass to drink."

"Oh," the woman smiled, still anxious, and wrung her hands awkwardly. She too was dressed in a nightgown, a loose peplos without a belt. Her white skirts were slitted thigh-length, and Elsa noted that there could very well be a knife hidden there.

"What is your name?" Elsa asked. "I had not seen you at dinner, forgive me."

"That's okay," the woman assured. "I did not attend. I'm Maera, um, Lady Maera. But," she wrung her hands again, "I go by Lady Mae. Icares, I mean. Of House Icares."

House Icares, northern Attolian. Teleus Icares, Baron of Sounis, was an incredibly private man who Elsa never met. Elsa recalled his name on the list of the most extensive vineyards whose wines were highly revered by nobles around the continent. He had three daughters, Elsa recalled, and never had anybody outside of his close staff had seen them.

She reminded Elsa of Anna, in a way. But she was younger than Anna, perhaps mid-twenties. Her hair was pulled out of her face in a tangled bun, as though done up herself, but pitch-black tendrils still fell loose to coil around her ears and touch her sharp jaw.

"Hello Lady Maera," said Elsa, hoping her own smile would put the girl to ease. "I trust you know who I am?"

"I do."

"What brings you out so late?" In truth, Elsa didn't know how late it was. Only that it was dark, and the torches were weak. "Rather, what brings you to Lethe? This is the first I've heard of an Icares girl leaving her home."

Mae drew in her shoulders, which were left naked by the sheer nightgown. There must've been a window open somewhere in the corridor; night's breath wafted along and ruffled cloth and hair. Elsa hadn't noticed it till Mae's reaction.

"Um, I was, well I am to marry. And I was sent here to meet my betrothed," said Mae. "I couldn't sleep."

When she shivered again, Elsa felt strangely responsible to warm her. "Would you like to join me someplace more comfortable, Lady Maera? It seems both of us have trouble sleeping tonight."

"Thank you, Your Grace." She seemed to want to be anywhere but there, but she could not deny the most powerful woman in the world.

A guard turned about a corner where the corridor angled away. He stopped and blinked when he saw the two women approach, recognizing at once the High Queen. He clicked his heels together and came to immediate attention. "Your Grace."

"My company and I seek a place to talk in comfort," said the High Queen. "Is there a library or a study where we could stay?"

"Just this way, Your Grace." The Lethe guard directed them down the hall where he had emerged. The library wasn't so far off, its doors flanked by a decorative amphora and the marble head of some Attolian mathematician. Inside, the comforting familiarity of tall, book-laden shelves and long, low tables greeted them. Rather than torches, the place was dimly lit by shielded oil lamps, so to lessen the danger of catching aflame the stray tome.

"Would you like a guard to accom-," the Lethe guard began.

"That would be all," Elsa cut him off, "Thank you."

The guard heard the unspoken dismal and responded in kind, turning on his heel and resuming his routine.

Hearing their voices, Eugenides lifted his head from an obscenely large volume. He sat splayed like an indolent teenager, the book propped on his belly and his gangly legs laying on the floor. Elsa sighed. Of course Gen would be here.

"Hello," said the scholar cheerily, blearily. "Sleep is for weaklings. Reading better."

Elsa stood at the doorway with Mae behind her, who peeked curiously around the High Queen. She wanted to be alone with Mae. Why had she wanted that? Gen was a good friend, a trusted friend. If so, why did she feel so potently annoyed?

"Gen," said Elsa.

"Hello," he said again, this time looking past Elsa to Mae.

"Hi." The highborn lady waved tentatively.

"Two stunning ladies to join me in my favorite kind of room." The scholar grinned lazily, his eyes unfocused. "Angels, I am one lucky geezer."

Elsa sighed again. He was drunk. Strolling into the room, Elsa snatched a heavy quilt laying over the backrest of a chair and turned to drape it around Mae, who closely followed. The girl drew the quilt around her, looking small and snug and embarrassed.

"You're drunk," Elsa pointed out curtly.

"Not drunk enough." Eugenides slid further to the floor, the back of his shoulders and neck still leaning against the chair cushions. "I need-I need to carry a bigger flask."

"Please excuse my scholar." Elsa guided Mae to a couch, on which the latter of whom sat primly. "He's not often like this."

"Of course," Mae said. She was blushing for some reason. "It's lovely to meet you, Eugenides. I've heard many stories of the Queen's Scholar."

"Really?" The old man cracked an eye. "What things?"

Elsa sat in a chair between them, crossing one leg over the other. Her gown shifted and transmuted over her skin, becoming a comfortable robe. She enjoyed dressing in the Attolian fashion.

"That before you were the Queen's Scholar, you were magus to Apollos."

"I remember that fat old bastard," Eugenides snorted. "What a fat old bastard."

When he saw that his words had ruffled Lady Maera, he lifted his hands innocently. "What? That man killed his own barons and ignored my counsel. I can call him a bastard."

"Gen," Elsa chastised, "you're making a fool of yourself."

"Apollos was the fool," sniggered the old scholar. "He-he thought he could win lands from the Snatchish lords if he helped them with their skirmishes. Do you know how foolish that sounds?"

"Very foolish?" Mae offered. She seemed unbothered by the intoxicated old man.

"You, my dear," Eugenides pointed, "would make a splendid apprentice." He held his gaze on her for a moment, cocking his head. "You're Zellucian."

"I'm Attolian," Mae insisted heavily. She must've had to explain this many times. "I was born in Zellucia, but was raised in Sounis of Attolia by my carers."

"Curious," Eugenides leaned back, "I never spent any time in the desert. It sounds sticky. How long were you in Zellucia?"

"I was taken across the Blaque Strait when I was ten months old."

Even drunk, the scholar was a maestro of histories and could apply it to anything. "Ahhhhhhh, the Day of Blood Roads."

Elsa was familiar with the slaughter. Her Master of Spies, Ulrich, had relayed it to her after one long day. The king had ordered the death of every infant girl in Ketasa. Their little bodies were dashed and broken upon the sandstone streets, painting them crimson. Elsa could not sleep that night, either.

Her eyes were drawn again to the Zellucian. It was that day when Ulrich had brought her news of the savagery taking place across the Strait, that she had sanctioned a wider network of spies throughout Zellucia like cast grain.

Lady Maera must've felt the High Queen's stare, for she turned her head so that their eyes met. High and well-defined cheekbones and a long, attractive face shined warm and welcoming in the lantern light.

"Who is your betrothed?" Elsa interjected her scholar's roaming lecture on Zellucian architecture, and how many of the Zellu women were able to hide their babes in the roofs of chambers built only to store hay.

Lady Maera drew herself further in the quilt, uncomfortable again. "His name is Aristogiton Laia, the son of Baron Philologos."

"The duelist?" Eugenides replacing his vexation for Elsa's interruption with curiosity. "Odd indeed to be married off to a duelist. What if he dies?"

Though death was not necessary to conclude a duel, a duelist could die from their injuries. The practice displeased Elsa.

Lady Mae shrugged helplessly. If Eugenides had been less drunk, he would have connected that Mae was not but a political chess piece to her father, it seems. Aristogiton was a famous sportsman, and famous sportsmen amass great wealth. No doubt, by the end of the year, Aristogiton would fall prey to some unlikely accident. A fall from his horse on a hunting expedition, or food poisoning that had slipped by the chef's notice. The people would mourn his passing and offer gifts of mercy to Persephone's alter for his passage to the Gracelands, but there would be no investigation. Aristogiton's wealth would pass to his widow.

They would not see that the straps for his saddle had been cut, nor the food he had choked on had been poison.

 _Gods, you're a pessimist_ , Elsa massaged her brow, realizing how tired she had come to be since sitting down. Eugenides was talking again.

"The duel is taking place tomorrow," she heard Mae answer Gen's inquiry, "and then I will ride with my betrothed to Demestrias to be married."

"By the king himself?"

"Gods, no," she giggled sweetly. "I doubt the king knows I exist. We will be married in any temple of Hephest that would take us. It is Aristogiton's wish."

"Angel of Fortitude and Grace," Gen sounded mildly approving. "He was my house's Angel when I was a boy."

They fell into that taut sort of quiet that Elsa felt that someone should speak, yet no words could be found. Finally, she swallowed a yawn.

"I should retire. If I stay awake all night with pleasant company, I might seem half dead in the morning." She rose.

As did Mae. "It was lovely to meet you, Your Grace." She said politely, curtsying.

"And lovelier to meet you, Mae- Lady Maera." Elsa stood straighter, catching herself with her familiarity, but it seemed to go unnoticed by the girl.

But not so by Eugenides. She felt his eyes on her, but she refused to look at him. It was nothing.

"Would you like a guard to accompany you on your way to your chambers?" Elsa asked, trying not to seem hasty.

"No, thank you, Your Grace," Mae made her way for the door, smiling over her shoulders, "I know the way." She stopped, looking at the lolling, drunken scholar. "What of Eugenides?"

"I will take him to his rooms," Elsa assured her, and she watched Mae smile again and disappear through the door. She was left watching the empty space Mae left behind.

The High Queen and her scholar made no conversation until they reached the doors to his room. Every guard they passed had offered his assistance, which the High Queen politely but firmly denied. Eugenides was her friend, incorrigible as he may be, and she would be sure he was taken care of.

When the door was opened to his antechamber, Gen finally spoke. "Nice lass."

"Yes." Elsa agreed, sounding disinterested. Or so she hoped.

"Big eyes."

She led him across the antechamber and opened the door to his bedchamber. "Mhm," she mumbled, tossing the man to bed.

"Big blue eyes," Gen drawled.

"Brown eyes," Elsa corrected absently, tugging a travel boot from his dangling foot. Apparently, he had been too lazy to change into something more suited for palace ware.

"Brown eyes?" Something about his voice, his tone, Elsa didn't like.

She glanced sharply up at him. "Yes, brown. Why?"

"Nothing," he sounded innocent.

"I'm taking your wine flask," Elsa took his wine flask.

"What? No!" He feebly tried to snatch it back, but Elsa had already stood and backed away, tossing it upon a desk overflowing with rolled parchment. "Whyyy?"

"Because I will not have my Scholar and my friend acting like a fool."

"I did not expect to have company," Eugenides argued, desperate to save his cherry wine. "You and your lady friend invaded _my_ privacy. Give it back."

"First, you will tell me why you were drinking." Elsa placed herself resolutely in Eugenides's vision, hands on hips. The scholar only turned to his fine wines when he could not find a solution, which was infrequent. When he did drink, he drank deeply. "Is it the Vhagn?"

Eugenides laid himself down on the bed and rubbed his face. After an expectant collection of seconds ticked by, marked by the clock standing next to the bed, he mumbled through his hands, "Partially."

"Partially?" Elsa didn't bother to stifle her agitation. "What do you mean 'partially'?"

"Partially the Vhagn, partially the barons," Eugenides said, "Partially the east, partially the west. Partially the south and north and everything between them."

"You're having an existential crisis at seventy-five?"

Eugenides laughed in that hollow, mirthless way of a tired soul. Tired to their bones. "Imperium."

"What about it?"

"Elsa," he said with his eyes closed, "empires are designed to fail. They go up, up, up until the monarch is above all else. Then the monarch falls down, down, down and smashes what he's built into pieces." He made a half-hearted crashing sound with his mouth. "It is the inevitability of a dynastical rule. No matter what the monarch believes, no matter how deep his pockets or how vast his army, the true power always lies in the people."

Elsa said nothing.

"I hope," Gen searched for his words. It was strange to witness; words often came so easily to him, like breathing, "I hope you know that there won't be an Imperium forever. We will fail, eventually."

Elsa didn't know what to say to that. She wasn't wise enough to know whether or not he was right, or whether to trust the statements of a drunk man. But Eugenides had always been brilliant. He had always been right. That didn't mean she enjoyed hearing that from the old scholar. That didn't mean he understood her vision.

"Sleep well, Gen."

Her exit was brisk, the door tapping shut behind her. Eugenides could hear the door to the antechamber close shortly after, and he was left to lay in silent darkness split only by the ticking clock.

Eugenides waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark before he sat up to search the room. The wine flask was gone from its spot on the desktop. Moaning mournfully, he flopped back onto his bed.

If he'd been awake the next minute, he'd have spotted the silhouette passing over his window.

. . .

The thief had not wanted to climb. The plan had been to descend from the roof. It was a trickier business; harder to find footrests and ledges, easier on the muscles. But the thief had not a chance to properly hide in a closet or antechamber and wait out the night. It would have been all the more difficult if the Dite Manse had instead been a more traditional megaron, with sills flush with its windows. Fortunately for the thief, the baron's house was the modern style mansion, with some architectural inspiration taken from the gaardic south.

It was prudent to avoid windows when possible. Even at the hour just passing midnight there was the odd night owl, stargazing or partaking in some sordid affair. The thief had been forced to pass over a window, as one of the footholds had been too loose to risk. Minutes later, still climbing, no alarm had been struck.

The thief had Khione, Lady Luck, to thank for the appearance of the High Queen. It had been absolute coincidence that just a day after the thief arrived, as did the most powerful monarch on the continent. In actuality, the thief should be afraid. In some far off corner of the mind, there was a sliver of fear. The sliver was overruled by excitement, however, and anticipation of the mission.

The plan was to climb five stories high, shimmy to the west wing, and drop down to the High Queen's platform. The thief didn't know the precise room and would have to check each balcony. It was a meticulous process, but the thief hadn't needed to start from the first floor, and the thief's arms were thankful for it.

The moon was two days from being full. Still, its shine offered enough light for the thief's eyes to find the next potential grip. Still clad for bed (with little time to dress in proper leathers) the shift was sheer and light, a bare leg exposed to the cold night from time to time. Breaks were needed, though, and the thief decided to take one more before beginning the horizontal progress to the west wing.

This high up, the thief could see beyond the Lethe gates. Moonlight reflected in calm Seperchia, as though the river itself slept. The thief crouched on the rail of a narrow platform used by birdwatchers, a custom addition to the manse by request of Erondites himself, the thief guessed.

The guard should have been expected.

There was scarcely time to swing from view and below the platform when the door clicked and swung open. Heavy boot steps shook the iron weaving. The thief could spy hints of a bearded face through the spaces of the iron bars, thick as fingers. The grinding of dried greedleaf could be heard, the snap of a match. Before long, the smell of burning greedleaf was carried by the wind, and the thief drew knees to chest so look smaller and took long, slow breaths to conserve strength.

The guard was no common guard at all. He was that captain of the Queen's Guard, who had arrived at Lethe by the High Queen's side and demanded control over the House Guard, shifting their schedule so to squeeze in his own men. The thief hadn't bothered to learn his name. All the thief knew was that this man was very well trained and very, very capable of running through stalking criminals.

The captain leaned against the iron railing where the thief had just been seconds before and stayed that way for a time, puffing on his pipe and humming a northern tune. The thief had been north before, had listened to northern women sing. Offhandedly, the thief wondered if the captain had a good voice.

Fingers were going numb. Supporting the thief's weight had cut off their circulation. The thief scoured below for a spot to settle. A pipe protruded from the wall several feet below. Catching it would most certainly make some noise; _I'm not weightless._

The cry of an owl drew the thief's attention. It soured high above them, white wings spread like an angel. The thief tried to look smaller when realization came that the owl was seeking the captain.

It angled down at a gentle dip. The captain lifted his arm, protected by leather padding to give the owl purchase. She was a magnificent creature, her feathers a pristine snow-white, with speckles of pepper dashed about her long neck.

No time to admire the damn bird. The thief could play this distraction to their advantage. Throwing an arm over a support bar, the thief searched madly for someplace to leap. In the dark, the thief had lost sight of the pipe for a frightening second. Above, the captain was stroking the owl's feathers.

"Good girl," the captain cooed. "Good, good girl. What have we got here?"

The thief heard the rustling of paper.

"The Golden Crocus," the captain muttered. "Okay, go on girl."

The thief tensed as the owl did the same, and when the owl burst from the captain's arm and became airborne, as did the thief. A half second of exhilarating air rushed around the thief before catching the pipe.

It creaked as the thief fought for a better grip. The thief froze, cringing and flattening against the wall.

The captain stopped puffing on his pipe and leaned over the railing, his hand darting for the wheellock pistol at his hip. He scanned beneath him, frowning and searching. What had made that sound? Not only had he heard the shriek of metal against metal, but he was certain he'd heard an exhale. A startled breath.

He slipped a lead pellet from its pouch on his belt and continued to scan. He relaxed a moment later, hand no longer gripping his pistol but resting on it. Just the wind.

A burst of motion and a small body blurred by his face. The captain had his weapon drawn before he gave himself time to think. The gun's sharp report barked in the night, the thief below flinching in answer. He missed his target—a bat that fluttered to and fro and soon vanished. He watched it go, shaking his head, and tucking his weapon away.

In the distance, a dog started to bark. A couple more joined the first, and torchlight passed from one window to the next as guards who heard the report ascended staircases towards the sound.

"Shit," muttered the captain. He grabbed the handle of the door, heaving a sigh. "Shit."

Several feet below him, the thief heard the captain retreat back into the manse. Only when the door lock clicked and many seconds after did the thief dare to move again.

Bless Khione and her lucky bosom.

The rest of the climb was uneventful. Progress was much slower when it should have been swifter; the captain firing his weapon had alerted much of the Lethe Guard. But as the thief neared the west wing, hopping periodically to window shields or shimmying along drainage pipes, the Guard was calmed by assurance of the embarrassed Queen's Guard captain. Sounds from inside the manse soon died away, and the night was again quiet and lonesome.

Upon reaching the west wing at long last, the thief paused to stretch stiff fingers. Three feet above was the roof, and fewer feet below was the first and highest apartment of the west wing. It would either belong to Erondites or the High Queen of Imperium.

There were chairs and a table on the balcony for outdoor meetings and lunches. The thief dropped to the table from above and rolled off it, crouching on the floor. Even from outside, the sound of a rhythmically creaking bed could be heard.

Frowning, the thief approached the balcony window at a crouch and peeked carefully into the room. The scene that greeted the thief was so bizarre, so utterly unexpected that the thief, if not for a moment, thought to have imagined it.

Erondite's wife, Agate, sat in the bed propped by pillows with an open book in her hands. Erondites lay in the bed beside her while another woman rode naked atop him. Agate seemed entirely unbothered by the affair taking place mere inches from her and even huffed with amusement at something in the book. The other woman, younger and prettier, started making loud, elongated sounds as she bounced on the baron.

The thief jerked back and leaned against the wall, hands rubbing eyes as though to wash them clean. Feeling besmirched, with horrified little shivers sparking through stomach and chest, the thief left the baron and baroness and whoever that other one was to their business.

The next balcony down was empty, and through a brief glimpse through the window, as was the apartment. The thief was beginning to grow impatient. Had the High Queen requested a different room?

Doubts were extinguished when the thief searched the next balcony down, but not in the way that would've been preferred.

High Queen Elsa Frode sat on a chair, alone, and facing north. The thief tried to gain a better look, tried to catch a hint of that angelic face when the thief's fingers slipped from the drainage pipe. It had leaked and then frozen over, eliminating friction, and panic shot through the thief like lightning.

The thief had to learn early in life how to fall silently, and not to scream in terror of hitting the ground. The thief's fall was brief and quiet as a phantom, catching the platform edge with nary a sound. Both arms felt like they could've been ripped from their sockets, the mass of the thief caught from a seven-foot drop. It was excruciating, but nothing the thief wasn't accustomed to. Tossing a leg over a support bar, the thief used hamstring, hip, and abdomen to levy a portion of the weight from throbbing shoulders. When the throbbing became a dull ache, the thief finally peered from under the platform to glimpse the Queen.

The High Queen had turned her head to the empty space where the thief had fallen, arms wrapped around her knees. She must've felt the stir of air, caught a faint blur of motion in her peripheral.

The thief watched her petite feet, gaze crawling up the fabrics of her robe and to the pink O of her mouth. Then, with bated breath, the thief looked into the face of the High Queen.

There sat before the thief was the ruler, anointed by priests and priestesses, of all the kingdoms of Imperium, the official mother of the people, the lady over the barons who had one by one sworn their oaths of obedience, the undisputed, uncontested, and absolute sovereign of the lands. So motionless was she, so silent the progress of her tears, that it was within the space of a breath that the thief realized the High Queen was crying.

Snowflakes hung suspended about her head like tiny stars come to pay tribute the moon, and frost crept over the chair and balcony floor. The delicacy of her anguish was a steep contrast to the unquestioned confidence she exuded in daylight. Here, in what the High Queen thought to be privacy, she allowed that mask to slip. The face behind her confidence was despondent, gentle, lonely. So closely did this Queen of kingdoms resemble a lost little child that the thief was reminded of somebody from another time and place. Somebody alone, afraid, and who ran far from home.

The edge of the balcony went from cold to bitter under the thief's fingers. The frost had reached all corners of the platform, and if the thief remained that way for too long, to fall would be inevitable.

Cursing, the thief swung and dropped down to the next balcony. The chamber it connected to belonged to one of Erondites's many guests who'd come to view the dueling tourney taking place noon tomorrow. Someone stood in the balcony doorway, having just turned to face the outdoors. In one hand he held a chalice of wine, the other grasped the hilt of a long rapier.

The thief hoped the chair was enough to hide behind. One sandaled foot lightly touched the balcony planks, and the thief's fingers inched for the dagger strapped to their thigh. Though how one could face a rapier with a nine-inch blade, the thief didn't know. Get close, if possible, slip under his guard somehow. But this man was a duelist, thoroughly trained for close-quarter combat against a singular opponent. The thief would have better luck outrunning cannon fire.

"Aris," a deep, sleepy voice rumbled from beyond the man at the door. Sheets shifted, a bed creaked. "Come to bed."

"I thought I saw something," said the man, "Cletus, stay there."

The other man chuckled, flopping back and rubbing his face. "Ghosts can wait. I prefer not to."

"Shh." the first man bent his knees slightly and readied to unsheath his blade, an inch of cold steel naked. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the night but stopped when two large and well-muscled arms enveloped him from behind. "Cletus, I'm se-... mm," his breath hitched, and he bit his lip when the larger man kissed his shoulder through silk robes. The first man's hand left the rapier's hilt, and a faint click was heard as the handguard met the sheath's lip.

"That's what I thought," Cletus growled in levity, dragging a reluctant yet complacent Aristogiton back to the bed.

The thief allowed breath when the door closed. The duelist and his lover would have their fun and then go to sleep, or one of them–Cletus, probably–would slip away and return to his own room. When they did, there would be a direct route to safety through Aris's chamber. The thief had had enough of climbing and dangling in the cold, clothed in naught but thin cloth.

A shaky breath came from the balcony above, proceeded by near weightless footsteps and the closing of a door as the High Queen returned to bed.

The thief wrung sore hands and glanced up at the underside of the balcony, picturing the High Queen's doleful and frozen tears.

There was ample enough time to steal from the monarch, whatever prize the thief chose. But not tonight. Not while she wept.

 _Chin up, princess, or the crown slips._

Then the thief's smile came, slow and sly. _The Crown. I'm going to steal the godsdamn Crown._

 **. . .**

 **Mentioned Geography**

 **The Blaque Strait** \- A narrow sea that separates Imperium from Zellucia.

 **Lethe** **(** lee **-** thee **)** \- A wealthy township sitting at the bow of the River Seperchia. Its baron is Erondites, who's popular for hosting tourneys and hunting expeditions.

 **The River Seperchia** \- The longest river in the continent. It falls down from the Witchpeaks of Trost and runs through Attolia. Where it enters Walpurgisnacht and empties into the Fog Sea, it's named _Abhainn_.

 **Sea of Olives** \- A sprawling orchard of olive trees as far as the eye can see. Only batches along its rim are pruned and cared for.

 **Zellucia (** zell **-** oo **-** shuh **)** \- The desert country east of the Blightlands and bordering Attolia, separated only by a narrow sea known as the Blaque Strait. Swords curve there, and slavery is the lucrative business. Nebet, the boy ruler, is said to be growing a vast army. Though it's just a rumor, even High Queen Elsa herself concedes that Zellucia and the ambitious king may grow to be a true rival of Imperium.

 **Character Index**

 **Agate (** ahh **-** gah **-** tee **)** \- The bookworm wife of Erondites and baroness of Lethe.

 **Aristogiton** **(** uh **-** riss **-** tuh **-** gei **-** ton **)** \- A famous duelist who's come to perform at the dueling tourney hosted by baron Erondites. He's betrothed to Lady Maera.

 **Cletus** **(** klee **-** tuss **)** \- Aristogiton's lover.

 **Erondites** **(** air **-** ronn **-** die **-** teez **)** \- The bulbous Baron of Lethe.

 **Lugh Lafhmada (** loo lah **-** phm **-** ada **)** \- The High Queen's Minister of War.

 **Lady Maera Icares** **(** may **-** ra ih **-** kar **-** eez **)** \- The timid adopted daughter of an overprotective baron, who had married her off to a man she never met. Interest comes to her upon revelation that she is Zellucian, native to the desert countries beyond the perilous Blaque Strait.

 **The Thief** -An uncannily stealthy and agile criminal who has targeted a new victim: High Queen Elsa Frode.

 **Ulrich Westergaard** \- The Secretary of Archives for Blys, officially. Unofficially he is the High Queen's Master of Spies, with eyes and ears in every nook and cranny of Imperium and beyond. He is now the youngest son of the Westergaard family. Once, the youngest was Hans Westergaard.

 **Captain Viggo Woll** \- Elsa's Captain of the Queen's Guard.

. . .

 **Footnote:** Bless my editor, kramer53, for dealing with my shitty writing and conforming it into something semi-comprehensible. You're an angel bae


	4. Chapter 4

**(A/N):** Woooo another chapter! This one (obviously) took way too long to complete. Roughly five versions? I'd lost count. Admittedly, I hadn't been spending the entirety of the last several months struggling with this. I tend to turn my attention to other things when I find writer's block.

I wanted it to be longer. But after months (actual months) went by with me just staring blankly at the last sentence, I finally told myself enough. This needs to get out there, otherwise there'll be no moving on.

So, enjoy.

 **Warning(s):** Strong language (near the end)

* * *

 **Chapter IV**

"' _Dhaljah! Dhaljah!', from Bhalz to Nahusaresh they sang, flooding the cities like the exultant sea. For there are no prophecies, and in the streets they shattered the Old Texts."_ \- Procivictus, a historian on the Haruudian Empire

 **. . .**

 **Arendelle City harbor had never been so occupied.** Galleons, longboats, sloops, carracks, and countless other ships crowded so close together among the peers and port-docks that Dockmaster Ire, just two days prior, closed the fjord for the first time in Arendelle's history. Visitors would be forced to make port at Alvsted, the closest settlement to Arendelle along the Cape of Enhalla. From there they'd take wagon or horse up to Arendelle with hopes that the revelries hadn't started without them. And oh, the revelries! The entire city well-nigh buzzed with anticipation for the holiday. The Festival of Five was at their doorstep, and the Arendellans would welcome it abundantly.

Dignitaries, merchants, entertainers, and opportunists crowded the cobblestone mainstreets. Puppeteers sat on their parked carts and enacted their routines. Singers flexed their ranges and warmed their throats, and some sounded so lovely that many passersby idled. The day was gray, the early winds heralded a storm, and yet there was laughter in Arendelle.

A stitched football hurtled along and ricocheted off a wide store window presenting seasonal wear. Rolling to the feet of a gangly teen, he kicked it down the street and watched haplessly as it veered just left of a makeshift goal. The boy groaned and covered his face as friends surrounding laughed and razzed.

Princess Sigrid could only wish to be with them. Arms outspread, she stood like a cross atop a stool, around which bustled her attendants. They were all pretty and young, their faces pinched as they withstood the abiding gripes of the princess. Her new tailor sat on a nearby chair, scratching sketches and scribbling notes almost frantically. It had taken weeks for the previous tailor and his assistants to stitch, sew, and crochet the perfect festival dress for the princess.

It had been absolutely her fault, and Sigrid stood by this, that wine had stained it.

Royal dinners were a tedious affair, much like most other royal affairs. Typically the royal family would dine in a smaller chamber. There they could eat and talk in privacy, without courtiers and court brats to mold their words to interpalace gossip. But the dinner was a formality to the king Fergison and the other royal guests, one that they would find was altogether unnecessary. Snatchish folk, as it seems, were a refreshingly informal people.

Oliver had replaced where the queen's consort would sit. Their father was still on the North Mountain and, with prayers, would return safely on Festival Day. Sigrid sat next to Oliver. All who were acquainted with the royal twins' churlish history with each other would see how this had been an ill-placed arrangement. But tradition was laid in stone, and the queen made them promise (over which Anna still held an almost childish reverence) to be on their most sterling behavior.

Now, despite Sigrid's oft spite-enthused exploits of imperial disaster, she was privately determined to put on her best face for the guests. She customarily could care less about who sat at the court table, about who glowered down their long noses at her in unconcealed contempt. But that night no pretender sat at the long table, but a warlord. A brutish, hulking, scarred, one-eyed king of seas and islands and the barbaric peoples who guarded them with vice-like greed. _The Pirate King,_ Sigrid had whispered conspiratorially to the awed court brats as Fergison passed them by in the palace halls. Oliver would correct her; _Fergison had been the one to battle the pirates._

Over the course of his stay, Sigrid never failed to badger the king with every war-related question conceivable. Fergison weathered these hyperverbal assaults like a captain in the storming sea; with a patient tenacity.

The King of Walpurgisnacht and islands surrounding was not the only notable royal guest. The Great House Li-Sho hailing from Heren, a peninsula country abroad, had arrived just the day before. Sigrid had been originally disinterested. Her vigorous geographical tutelage had always passed through one ear and escaped out the other, while Oliver prospered in all of his academic endeavors with apparent ease. At first, Sigrid could not have guessed the source of his almost giddy anticipation of the Great House Li-Sho. Upon seeing them coming through the Arendelle palace gates, the banner of a multicolored heron on a white backdrop held high above them, Sigrid had finally understood.

In all her life Sigrid had never seen such an exotic people. Their skin were as snow-white as that of the Arendellans, and that was where similarities ceased. Ears, long and pointed, protruded from round heads. Their eyes were slits as pitch-black as their long hair, and all of them, even the men, were dressed in flowing, floral robes of resplendent silks.

"Elves!" Was the whispered word throughout the people. "Descendants of the Elves!"

Formal dinners were never without music, and for such an occasion as the Festival, when cultures were intermingled and introduced, the Li-Sho family presented their own musicians. The performer was the Shūnu Li-Sho Fai, Lady of the Great House. She had sat on a high stool between tables, and the dinner guests were forced to swivel in their seats to watch.

Sigrid grimaced when the music began. Shūnu Fai played a strange, string-and-bow instrument Oliver had called a gaohu, and to the princess it sounded too shrill, too sharp. Glancing about, Sigrid saw that she was not alone in this. Minister Ellard wore a look of polite interest, yet Sigrid could see the strain at the corner of his lips. Minister Conor, who Sigrid thought was an atypically pleasant man, was dipping his nose into his bowl of tomato and basil soup, suppressing a grin. A court brat, gawky Filip, tried to cover his ears. His mother, a duchess, took her spoon and very publically swatted his wrist with it.

Oliver was, however, entranced. Mouth slightly parted, he looked on in wonder, spellbound by the alien music. His head tilted to the sounds, as though the scraping notes toyed him like a puppet. He was slave to Fai's performance. Sigrid rolled her eyes. Propping her elbow on the tabletop, she cupped her cheek and lethargically sawed at her sausage with a fork.

When the song finished, Sigrid bothered not to muffle her sigh of relief. A sharp elbow nudged her side. She elbowed Oliver back. Both looked away when the queen cast them a look that could wither mountainsides.

The Shūnu Fai took a breath. She was truly a lovely woman. The Herenese were quite short in stature, and the Lady Fai was very nearly the size of a child. She did look small, perched on that stool like a goldcrest in that yellow kimono. Fai looked to her husband, who observed without expression.

"Ballad of Lan Huahua," she announced, her Northspeak meticulously pronounced, "I thank you."

When she started the next song, Sigrid had to physically cajole herself from slouching in her seat. But this song was different. It was softer, slower, the notes long and lilting. It was sad.

Oliver leaned over to whisper, "I read about this. It tells a true story about a young girl who was forced into marriage with an old landlord. She had a sweetheart, I forget his name…"

"Wow."

"He left her," Oliver plowed through her disinterest. "He was a soldier and had no choice but to go to battle. He died in a feud between barons. The girl's family felt disgraced, offended."

"Offended that he died?"

"It doesn't sound fair."

Sigrid felt unreasonably invested in the injustice of the story. "It's _not_ fair."

Oliver ignored her. "Lan resisted the marriage to no avail. She died of heartbreak at twenty-four."

The Shūnu Fai's look of forlorn tranquility was clear to Sigrid, then.

"More recent renditions of the story try to dramatize it," a mild irritation crept into her twin's voice, "The girl escaped the landlord and sought her sweetheart. The landlord's men chased her, though, and unwilling to return to him she threw herself off a cliff. I like the original better."

"I don't like either."

"Well, if you had to choose…?"

Sigrid watched the Shūnu Fai as she swayed to her music, wondering if she had been forced into the Li-Sho family, just like Lan Huahua. "The second one," she decided.

"Why?"

"She did something about it," the princess looked down at her hands, playing with the wooden ring her father had carved for her.

"Even that she died?" Oliver stabbed a raspeball, dabbed it in sour cream, and chewed.

Sigrid thought about it for a moment. The Shūnu Fai's gaohu was nearing a climactic pitch, and in the feverish notes she could see Lan Huahua's pale dress fluttering around her as she fled into the night. "She refused to be caged like a bird," said Sigrid, "She chose." Her own words made her chest feel tight. Why was she suddenly so upset?

"Mh," Oliver mumbled around the potato.

They both hushed when a cupbearer closed in on them. A pewter amphora tilted and filled Sigrid's wine cup. Oliver's had gone untouched. Only on formal occasions such as this were the children permitted wine, and even then it was watered down to the point of mourning.

The Ballad of Lan Huahua finished. This time, the applause was more than polite. In some cases, even, it was emphatic. Women dabbed at their eyes primly whilst their husbands set their jaws and clapped. The Shūnu Fai stood and bowed at the waist, smiling with that doll-like face of hers, and returned to her place by her husband. The gaohu and stool were removed by servants and the night's entertainment resumed.

The entreés were served. Palace servants swept into the hall bearing bowls and platters for the mass of lesser nobles, while exquisite dishes were placed before the royal guests. Queen Rapunzel of Corona, first cousin once removed to Sigrid, ooo'ed and ahhh'ed at the brunosh and sliced fish set before her. Her husband, the king, eyed his wife's plate, grin oozing across a goateed face. With nimble fingers he darted forward and snatched away one of the sliced lemon garnishes and, chuckling, the mischievous king endured his wife's assault of shoulder-swats. Their princeling sons, Henry, Jochen, and Pascal were far too busy wolfing down their bread sticks to notice the exchange.

At the head of the table, there sat the Queen of Arendelle. Her handservant and close companion, Morges, stood attentively beside her without any interest betrayed in the thespian brave enough to approach them. Sigrid's eyes dropped to her mother's plate.

"Doesn't mama hate sushi?"

Oliver took up a dinner cloth and dabbed his brow. "She's being polite to the Herenese dignitaries."

Sigrid gave her brother a second glance. "She's eating it with a fork. You're glistening."

Oliver grimaced, hiding half his face with the cloth. "Is it that obvious?"

"Are you okay?"

"It's just the food." Oliver leaned back against the headrest.

Sigrid decided that if she never ate, she'd be hungry when they'd all retire for bed. Many nights she had crept from her room to sneak pastries in the kitchens, but since her little escapade down to the docks the other day, she thought it best to display subservience. She seized a bowl of kumla for herself.

"You could eat them with a fork, at least," Oliver offered.

"Kums are finger food."

Oliver smothered his rebuke with more potato, chewing thoughtfully.

"Eilise." said Sigrid.

Oliver choked on his potato and coughed it onto the table, like a cat expelling a furball. Bits of grated food splattered over the table cloth, a grossly large chunk plopping into the soup bowl of one startled noblewoman.

"What's the matter with you?" Sigrid hissed.

Oliver waved off servants as they rushed to clean his face of half-chewed food. "Sorry," Oliver croaked, "I'm sorry. I'm okay."

Lady Eilise of House Farannaín had stood from her place by the king and glided to the middle of the feasting chamber. Rolling her eyes, Sigrid slouched in her seat and popped another kumla in her mouth. She could never understand Oliver's fixation on the dainty redhead. Yes, she was pretty and tall and well-mannered and graceful and elegant and regal and talented and had a reputation as the finest singer in all of Walpurgisnacht, but to think her twin brother, who had never an eye for any of the local girls, had become so infatuated with the Songling befuddled the princess.

The king's ward seemed maddeningly shy, just as she looked maddeningly gorgeous in that maddeningly green dress. On her head rested a traditional wreath of rowan wood, with snowflakes carved from opal entangled in the twisted branches. It was an obvious homage to the High Queen, Sigrid's very own aunt. She could be nothing like Elsa. Why pretend?

A Snatchish bard with a lute accompanied Eilise. The murmurs and clinking of the feast hall dampened when he began his prelude. Striking blue eyes fixed on the ceiling, Eilise silently counted the beat until it was time for her to start.

 _I have never known peace_

 _Like the damp grass that yields to me_

 _I have never known hunger like_

 _These insects that feast on me_

…

 _A thousand teeth_

 _And yours among them, I know_

 _Our hunger's appeased,_

 _Our heartbeats becoming slow_

Not even the clinking of silverware could be heard. It was as though Eilise had sucked in all the sound in the hall and let it flow from her chest. Her voice rose and dipped in ways Sigrid never knew could be done, and she hated how transfixed she was by it.

 _We lay here for years or for hours_

 _Thrown here or found_

 _To freeze or to thaw_

 _So long we'll become the flowers_

 _Two corpses we were_

 _Two corpses I saw_

The song was of two lovers-become-corpses rotting in a field, with verses of graphic decay, of animal and insect come to feast on their remains. It was a morbid song, Sigrid resolved. Who'd want to waste their lives sinking into the ground? The thought made her chest clench, and she was thankful that the northern traditions called for the cremation of the deceased. Whyever the Snatchish buried their dead was beyond them. Did their souls sink too, down to the center of the earth?

Eilise's voice went on to verse the imagery of a tragic love ballad, while Sigrid's eyes went to the spectators. The attention of the hall was collectively fixed on King Fergison's ward, which gave Sigrid an ample window through which to openly examine the dinner guests. The Attolian dignitaries, including the Attolian ambassador Ambiedes, sat at the next table down from the royal family. They were adorned in silks finer and more elaborate than the northern fashion. Sigrid thought Attolian men looked nearly feminine, in a way. They were all so slight and short compared to the callous men of the north. Even their blades were skinnier.

King Fergison and the Snatchish ambassador sat at the high table with Queen Anna and the other royal guests of Arendelle. His place was directly beside King Eugene, and Sigrid thought they almost looked alike. If Fergison hadn't been so hideously scarred, he might've passed as some distant relative of the King of Corona. Cúchulainn's Hand, though, were seated down by the Attollians. They were an unruly bunch, even dressed up in what might've been their formal attires. They dined greedily, as though this meal could be their last. As Sigrid watched them, her heart lurched. Not all were so preoccupied. One had met her gaze, as though he'd been watching her all along.

It was Siollán, the commander of Cuchúlainn's Hand. Fingers scratching his chin, he leaned forward in his chair as his eyes darted about the head table where the queen and her family sat. When his glare rested on Sigrid again, the princess squirmed. The smile that stretched thin lips was a little too wide, and it did not reach his eyes.

The main entertainment had passed. Musicians struck up a lively tune and the local tap-dancing group started their performance. This only drew the attention of the Li-Sho family. Everybody else was more occupied with loose-tongued, aimless conversation. Oliver, bless the idiot, watched Eilise as she took her seat by Fergison. The king's ward hadn't yet noticed, fortunately for both of them, and ate her lutefisk with tactful demure.

Sigrid glanced again at Siollán. His grin had vanished, returning to his meal as though he had never done it. The princess nudged her brother.

"Did you see Siollán?"

"Mh? Who?" Oliver answered with half a mind.

"The guard commander," said Sigrid, "He was looking at me funny."

"Sig," Oliver wiped again at his perspiring brow, "You are sagging and eating a bowl of kumla with your fingers. Everybody is looking at you funny."

"No, this is different," but her reply landed on deaf ears. Sigrid took a fork and poked him, who jerked away and shot her a filthy look.

" _How_ is it different?"

"I don't know."

"Then why," Oliver drawled, "are you bothering me?"

Sigrid recoiled. To ever get along with him was miraculous, but at least he had always addressed her as he would an equal. She _was_ his equal. But now he spoke like he was condescending to talk to her, as though she sapped away his precious time to ogle that damn songbird.

Oliver, much like many other things around him, did not notice. When exactly he had ascended above Sigrid was a mystery. Sigrid did not care. The spite was already building, and if anybody ever knew the princess for any length of time, there was no plausible way for her to swallow it back down. Anger gathered in her like magma in a fire mountain, and there was no way for the rage to go but up in one enraged explosion.

She'd had quite enough of this dinner.

In her haste to take up the wine and fling it in Oliver's stupid face, some of it had sloshed onto her own embroidered bodice. Queen Rapunzel made a squeaking sound and _lunged_ from the splashing wine, knocking over her husband who had crafted a makeshift sandwich from traditional northern food. Both he and his invention toppled over, but with a somehow clumsy grace, he caught his fall by bracing his arm against the floor. He even saved his sandwich with his free hand. The display of uncanny adroitness from the King of Corona did not distract at all from the wine-stain that pooled over the front of Sigrid's fine dress like blossoming blood.

All eyes were on her. Eilise, stupid, pretty, tall Eilise looked horrendously sympathetic. Fergison was unsmiling and mercifully returned to his food. Oliver covered his tomato face in secondhand embarrassment. The Queen of Arendelle looked startled by the burst of motion. She had stood as though expecting an assault. Sigrid looked to her mother but saw no anger nor sympathy. Not even disappointment. The queen swept her glare through the feasting hall, and like a sickle through barley, the gapes and grins and boorish whispers dispersed.

Did they expect her to make a fuss over the dress? Sigrid looked down at the stain and mourned the hours she'd have to stand stationary as her tailor poked and prodded until a new festival dress was fashioned. Why could she not simply toss on one of her daily outfits? Those Sigrid despised slightly less.

It would forever be one of Sigrid's long-lasting shames, but she found some sort of mad humor in the ruined dress. Perhaps it was the release of frustration pent up all evening. Perhaps it was merely mean-spiritedness. Whatever it was, whatever the cause, Sigrid could not keep herself from laughing.

It bubbled out of her like spilled juice, as unable to contain it as one would a belch. With one hand Sigrid clutched her belly, while the other slapped unceremoniously on the table top. She turned to her shocked brother, who was now scarlet with a feverish embarrassment. Seeing how spotless she was, even after all her efforts, the princess guffawed harder.

What a disappointment she must be, to not grieve the product of her own ire.

 **. . .**

All the tailor needed was one look at his spoiled work. With slow, deliberate movements, he began to gather his tools and his papers. When the instruments of his trade were neatly packed in a single leather case, he bowed politely to Sigrid and her attendants, wished them a happy festival, and left. His young and fidgety apprentice followed close behind, arms barely containing his mass of parchments.

Sigrid, now sobered, had not missed the stiffness in the retreating tailor's gait. When he was gone, her chamber door closed gently behind him, Sigrid was left alone under the unsubtle scrutiny of her attendants.

"It was my fault," she said, as though admitting so would fix it.

"Of course it was not, my lady," Helle, the eldest and highest-born of the attendants, purported to agree.

The attendants busied themselves with the mess of the room. Over the last several days Sigrid's bedchambers had been appropriated by the tailor as his workstation. Stips of cloth hung over the back and armrests of a chair. Needle and thread had spilled over the edge of the desk and laid in a colorful heap on the floor. Articles of clothing riddled the floor as though a windstorm had howled through.

Sigrid wanted to help them but knew they would insist otherwise. Too spent for a potential argument, the princess merely sat at the rim of her bed and gazed into the middle distance.

Had she disappointed her mother?

It was easy to make the queen angry. Not that variety of rage that bends nations, but the domestic frustration that comes with a family. Sigrid was a lot more like her mother, which was perhaps why, out of both her parents, she got along least with Anna. She was accustomed to mama's anger. But disappointment? Disappointment gnawed and nestled until it made Sigrid's head it's home.

An hour passed. Before it had ended, Sigrid's attendants had finished cleaning and stood by until one suggested to the princess that they be dismissed for rest. An absent Sigrid obliged, and the attendants left her to her thoughts. Outside, she knew, they would draw straws on who'd remain outside her door, should the princess need anything.

She laid back in her bed, gazing up at the ceiling, and considered running away to live with her troll cousins.

Her bedroom door opened and shut gently when Sigrid expected it to slam. She could tell it was her mother the queen just by the way she breathed. Neither of them said anything, not that Sigrid minded. For all she was concerned the two of them could linger in a well of unspoken tension for the rest of their lives.

Finally, the queen was moving. Sigrid could hear her footsteps cross the room and pass her. Frowning up at her ceiling, Sigrid wondered why she hadn't settled herself at the end of her bed like all concerned parents did. The friction of book covers could be heard as Queen Anna removed a sizeable tome from the bookshelf. The footsteps closed in on Sigrid, then, and the princess braced herself.

There it was, the weight of another body on her bed. In any instance her father had done the same, Sigrid had been comforted. But now, here, all she felt was more anger.

The rustling of pages. Out of the corner of her eye, for the princess refused to look directly at her mother, Anna licked her thumb. She began to read.

"A thousand years before Lagg the Seabearer conquered the indigenous Northfolk, a dragon lived in the North Reaches. His name was Cholbahdess, and he ruled everything he set his golden eyes upon."

"What are you doing?" Irritation crept into Sigrid's voice.

"Cholbahdess was the mightest dragon of the Reaches. His breath brought flame, his wings sturred the winds, his eyes froze living with the most rigid fear. He was king, higher than the gods, or so he fooled himself to believe."

"I know how it goes, mama," Sigrid covered her face. _Cholbahdess and the Questions Three_ was one of the royal twins's favorite stories as children.

"Amak was a goat-herd. Young and inquisitive, he and his tribe thrived on the mountainside. He had heard of the dragon Cholbahdess, and had seen the vastness of him like a storm on the horizon. 'Cholbahdess is the King now,' his people told him, 'We will bow when he flies overhead so that he will not scorch us and our livestock."

"Yes," sighed Sigrid, "and when Cholbahdess flew over them he didn't bow. I remember."

Anna continued, unperturbed. "The Dragon King did such that very evening. When Amak rattled his staff and guided his herd for the village, and wind swept in from the east, and the setting sun was blocked by a body so large that, for a moment, night came early."

Sigrid mouthed along with her mother's dialogue.

"'I see that you do not bow like your village. Why do you offer no respect for your king?' asked Cholbahdess."

Patience finally waned, the princess sat up to face her mother. "What are you doing?"

Anna blinked innocently at her daughter, book cradled in her lap. "I'm reading you a bedtime story, Sig."

"You haven't read me a bedtime story since I was nine!

"Hmm," the queen's brow wrinkled, "I don't think I've never missed a bedtime story for my baby girl."

"I'm not a baby girl anymore!"

This time, Anna's eyes became edged, and she fixed Sigrid with them, "Truly, Sigrid? Because I can not tell."

Sigrid held her mother's glare. "Really? You're going to-going to accuse me of acting like a child?! Did you even hear what Oliver said to me?"

Anna shook her head, "It doesn't matter."

"He was being condescending!"

"I don't care."

Sigrid was becoming louder, she noticed, but did nothing to remedy it. "You always take his side! You _always_ take his side!"

"I'm not taking sides, Sigrid."

"The only one who ever loved me in my life is Papa!" Sigrid spat. She knew how ugly her words were, but she'd already shoveled her pit of chaos. What else could she do but make it deeper? "He's the only one who sees my side!"

Anna's mouth opened and shut like a guppy swallowing air, shocked.

"Oliver's always right, isn't he?" Sigrid demanded, "He's never wrong, is he? Oh, no! He could never do wrong! He's the perfect little prince!"

"Stop it."

Sigrid could feel hot tears collecting just under her eyes. "Why-why do you never hear me? Do I always have to yell or act out for you to even look at me?!"

Anna said nothing this time, which only further stacked Sigrid's temper. "Say something!"

But the queen was either speechless or she refused to answer. She had leaned back Sigrid as though she exuded some incredible heat, her face openly hurt. But Sigrid's blood was still high; she was too angry for guilt.

Very abruptly the queen rose from Sigrid's bed, leaving the tome of bedtime stories behind and striding briskly for the door. When she reached it, Anna looked back at her daughter. Her beautiful little girl, perched there abed, so vicious and beautiful and true.

"My duties as queen…" Anna visibly sought what to say and how to say it, "The kingdom, I know it can pull me away, sometimes."

In the years to come, Sigrid will always look back on this moment with gagging, choking, _wretched_ shame. She would endure ceaseless hardships, bear countless scars. But the scars she'd inflict, the scars she has inflicted, would forever haunt her.

But there, then, at the tender age of twelve, when she still yet had so very much to learn, Sigrid thought very little of what she said next.

"Fuck you. Fuck the kingdom."

Anna's jaw tightened, fingers coming to squeeze the doorknob. In that moment, Sigrid thought, she very much resembled her sister the High Queen.

Flopping back on her bed, Sigrid neglected to watch her as mother flung open the door. This time, it slammed.

 **. . .**

 **Chapter Index**

 **The Ballad of Lan HuaHua -** A true romance that has descended from history as one of the most acclaimed literary arts of Heren.

 **Cholbahdess and the Questions Three -** An old folktale popular in the north.

 **Gaohu** \- a Herenese instrument (google gaohu) with a strange, shrill voice that could unnerve the uninitiated.

 **Shūnu (** Shoo **-** noo **)** \- The Herenese honorific for a highborn lady.

 **In A Week -** DISCLAIMER, the song sung by Eilise is by singer-songwriter Hozier. All rights go to him. Check out the song on Spotify, Apple Music, or Google Play. There's also a lovely acoustic version you can find on Youtube on the Kilkenny Sessions, which the scene in this chapter was inspired by.

 **Geography Index**

 **Alvsted -** A merchant township south of Arendelle, established by Queen Anna and given to Duke Saugstad, who named the port-town after his son who had passed away that spring.

 **Cape of Enhalla -** A broken shoreline south of Arendelle and near Walpurgisnacht. Smugglers had once used to the cape and its many hidden passages to pass undetected into the northern peninsula.

 **Heren -** A country abroad the Restless Sea (north of the Fog Sea). The Herenese people are vastly different from the people of Imperium and Zellucia beyond. Some call them inhuman, even, with their pointed ears and manic inclination for the arts. Relations are comfortable and profitable between Imperium and Heren, but whether or not Heren would join Imperium is unsaid. A precious material known as ironpearl is harvested there and fashioned into some of the finest weapons in the world. Heren's other primary exports are rice, soy, bronze, and sugar.

 **Character Index**

 **King Eugene of Corona** \- An (allegedly) reformed thief-become-king.

 **Lady Li-Sho Fai -** The wife and mother of the Great Herenese House Li-Sho. She is a lawded musician throughout her home country. She is also one of the few members of any Great House to have not come from any noble line. Before she was nobility, she busked in the streets of Gada just so she could afford to eat.

 **Henry, Jochin, and Pascal** \- The Princes of Corona. Henry is eleven, Jochin, nine, and Pascal, named after Rapunzel's deceased chameleon friend, just turned five.

 **Helle Geving** ( **hell** \- **eh** ) - The eldest of Sigrid's attendants, Helle is the daughter of a duke in a town east of Arendelle.

 **Queen Rapunzel of Corona** \- Cousin of High Queen Elsa and Queen Anna, Rapunzel is the Queen of Corona, a small shoreside kingdom south of Arendelle


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter V**

 _"Lo, there do I see the young god. I do not worship thee. Harken, and know thyself." -_ Diogenes the Frowned

 **. . .**

**The fox nuzzled dew-speckled grass.** Lingering there in the fringes of a clearing, the sunlight slanted upon the fox so that it's coat gleamed. Something cold and wet touched the fox's head, making it flinch and perk. A long tongue flicked out to lick its nose, and, working its jaw, the fox looked up.

The second snowflake kissed the fox, somehow keeping its form as it perched there at the end of the beast's snout. Baffled and alarmed, the fox flicked its tail and bolted from the clearing just as a crossbow's quarrel hissed by and split the bark of a tree.

A flock of sombre tits fled from the canopies, and birdsong altogether ceased, for the heavy steps of man trod, and nothing good could come of it.

The first of the men to emerge from the underbrush was short and round as a barrel, his white beard long and thick, though not thick enough to hide the cherry of his cheeks. In the mid-morn, Baron Erondites was already sufficiently drunk. With an enraged grunt, he hefted his heavy crossbow and tossed it the length of the clearing. The hunting party that followed watched as it clattered against the damp earth, flopping in its awkward shape. Baron Erondites's, breathing heavily from the exertion, turned to face the company.

"That crossbow," he cried, "Has worked against me this whole hunt!"

Hesitantly, Lord Ornon raised a hand like a cowed student, "Perhaps, Baron Erondites, you would like my own crossbow? It is a fine work of art."

Indeed it was. Ornon's handservant presented a slender work of dark wood, with the head of Demophile's hawk carved at the end of the barrel. If the crossbow were drawn, the quarrel would fire from the hawk's open beak.

Begrudgingly, the baron accepted the weapon and studied it as a musician would another man's lute. He put his eye to the butt, examining the length of it, and ran his hand over the curling wood. "This is spectacular craftsmanship, Ornon," he breathed. "You must tell me the name of the man who crafted this!"

With one shoulder, the lord shrugged. "I forget."

"A pity," said Erondites, fingering the trigger, "A true pity. Right!" Again he addressed the hunting party with a newfound cheer, "My guests, this is a fine spot for breakfast, do you not agree?"

It was indeed. The clearing was as picturesque as the paintings in the baron's halls, with a sun so often hidden by the gray sky of the season smiling down and basking the woodlands in a rare warmth of the late year. Although breaths fogged and shoulders were rubbed, the brisk was bearable, almost comforting. Blankets were tossed over the grasses for the party to sit and eat. Some lords who'd once been veterans tended to the fires themselves, recollecting times of war when scenes like this were the norm.

As the party settled, the High Queen appeared from the wood. She was dressed as though untouched by the cold. But of course, she was not. Rather, she'd wrapped herself in it, became enveloped by it so that the chill flooded her senses in the most pleasing way. A black peplos that revealed milk-white arms and shoulders reached just below the knees, a silver-studded leather belt hanging over wide hips. Her feet were sandaled in the Old Attolian fashion, and she stepped lightly, like the breeze, like a ghost.

"My Queen," the baron came to her, pleased at her reappearance, "My good Queen, I feared you had grown fatigued with the hunt and returned to the township!"

Elsa smiled at the gnomish man, "Do forgive my absence, Baron Erondites. I tend to wander."

"There are many beasts afoot, the season is ripe for it," warned the baron, "My honor would be at peril if I do not supply you with my personal guard."

"There is no need, my baron," said the Queen, doing her best to not sound spurning, "My own lurks."

True to her word, the captain of the Queen's Guard, Viggo, did lurk at the edge of the encampment. His lean frame was propped against a tree, arms and legs crossed as a ginger-scruffed jaw chewed the end of a smoke pipe. Tendrils plumed, fire sparked, and cunning eyes were lit under a tangle of orange curls.

The baron was skeptical. "Do you not think he seems a bit… a bit… well, unprofessional?"

Elsa was unbothered by the baron's accusation. "Erondites, as long as that man keeps my subjects and I safe, I don't care if Mr. Woll walks among us naked as a newborn."

Sputters morphed into open, uproarious laughter. The Baron swelled as though he was made from it. "Fair enough, My Queen! That is fair enough!"

Breakfast was served among the gentry. The scents of beacon, eggs, and sausage hung in the air and were carried by the breezes. Low travel tables were hastily assembled for those who required silverware. Some of the lords offered their aid to the servants struggling with the tables, perhaps simply to showcase their benevolence, while their wives gathered in packs of twos and threes to watch and gossip amongst themselves.

"Do you always watch everybody so intensely, Your Grace?"

Elsa started, facing Lady Mae, who was standing just behind the High Queen, dressed appropriately in soft leather leggings and a tunic the color of sunflowers. She wore a bright, curious expression.

"You're rather quick on your feet," said the High Queen, not displeased to have found a distraction from the hunt.

"You believe so," Lady Mae rocked on her heels, lacing her fingers behind her back, "I was always the first to be caught in a game of snatch the ribbon."

Her hair was bound in the same braid as it was last night, although small amber jewels now sparkled amid the sea of glossed black waves. There was not a single fine lock; even the loose coils that dangled free of her braid over one ear were dark and thick.

She was wearing makeup now, too. It hadn't even occurred to Elsa that Mae had been bare-faced when they'd first met. Now faint green stained her eyelids, matching her olive complexion exquisitely, her lips done to look smooth and moist. Still, she was no painted doll of the court.

"Now that I am subject to your intensity," said Lady Mae, "Should I be flustered?"

 _She's leagues bolder in the day_ , thought Elsa. Aloud, she said, "That and honored, Lady Maera."

The lady opened and closed her mouth like a guppie. _Ah hah._

"I tease," Elsa allowed, basking just a bit in Lady Mae's fluster. "My 'intensity'?"

Lady Mae wrung her hands. _She does that quite often._ "Intensity is probably too strong a word…" said the Zellucian, "If you'd forgive my forwardness."

"Of course."

"I've come to see a part of you that is always searching. When you speak with the lords, you don't just look into their faces. You're observing their hands, their feet, their shapes, the way they move. Some you dismiss outright, though you are too polite to make it apparent. And others…" Lady Mae faltered for a moment, looking up at Elsa, "My Queen, what is it you are looking for?"

Absorbing the lady's words, Elsa lapsed into prudent thought. A moment of pondering passed before she raised her hand to the company. "Lady Mae, behold the opulence of the Attolians. They feast on their dried olives and find the most prime interest in only the next court scandal. They lounge, and fatten themselves, and drown in fine drink and amorous company. Mere years ago, a good portion of these lords opposed me in a war incited by their tyrant king. Everywhere I go, Lady Mae, I can only see enemies. I cannot afford otherwise."

Silence would have bulged between them, if not the clatter of silverware had filled it. The Lady Mae gazed up at the empress, then cast her eyes down. "My Queen… that sounds exhausting."

Elsa chuckled with a sort of bitter humor, crossing one arm under her breasts so that the other was propped up to cup her cheek. "It was something I should have predicted in my widespread endeavors. Enemies, it seems, are very easily attained."

"You did not think, when you came south, that enemies would dog you?"

"No," said the High Queen, almost laughing again, "I did not leave Arendelle to attract antagonists and conquer the world."

The Lady Mae turned to wholly face the High Queen. Elsa answered the unspoken question dangling in the air.

"I came south to claim what I was owed," a fierce sliver etched itself into her words, the High Queen almost baring her teeth as she spoke, "and that fool king had defended the bastard man who had tried more than once to destroy me and my family. He refused to believe what Hans had done. I'd hungered for justice."

"Was your hunger sated?" Lady Mae's voice was close to a whisper. Elsa looked over to the girl to see the careful poise of her expression. Was that fear?

The High Queen's eyes clouded with reminiscence. An island surrounded by ice, ships trapped in the harbor. An army breaching the walls of Midlehan, whose blaze lit the night sky. Screams of women, of children, of the soldiers who opposed her forces. The snow. The ice. The cold. The dark. The womb of an empire.

Barking interrupted them. A houndsman over yonder began to shout and whistle, and a new excitement rushed through the hunting party.

"A scent!" Erondites brandished his new crossbow, "Come, lads! A fox would have been a fine and dandy kill, but boars are what makes boys men!"

The men of the company scrambled from their resting spots in pursuit of the deceivingly nimble barrel of a baron, leaving the servants behind to clean what mess was left to them.

"Wild boars?" Lady Mae seemed uncertain, "Is that safe?"

"If it were safe," One of the highborn ladies came between them. Her brown and white-streaked braid of hair was wrapped around her head, and she was dressed as though she had not taken a dozen steps from her study and not standing a good mile into the woodlands. Lady Agate Erondites looked tired and disgruntled, twisting a band on her finger that Elsa recognized as a tribute ring to her matron angel. "It would not turn boys to men. Although…," she layed a wearily playful hand on Lady Mae's arm, "I've seen more men become boys at the sight of a charging boar."

"You've seen a charging boar?" Asked Lady Mae, aghast and wide-eyed.

"At hand," said Lady Erondites, waving off Lady Mae's awe. She turned to the High Queen, curtseying. "Your Grace, I apologize you must withstand the shit that is my dear husband's morning hunts."

Elsa had yet to tear her eyes from this girl, small and sweet and shy, who had somehow unearthed deep-rooted secrets from her that Elsa had hesitated to share even with Eugenides, much less the White Council. But then her attention finally shifted, and she let her shoulders drop just so. "I did not know how to politely deny him, Lady Erondites."

"Well, you've done him a great service, Your Grace." Said Agate, "Your rejection would have depressed him for days. A depression I would have willingly endured, if to spare you this horde of sweat and mounting testosterone."

"Testosterone?" asked Lady Mae.

"A chemistry in the brain," said Lady Agate, "that makes men, men. I read of it in a book of human sciences. Do you read, Your Grace?"

Elsa cocked an amused brow, shortly after which Agate realized what she'd said. "Oh-, Your Grace, My Queen, I did not mean-, that is to say-,"

"All is well. I quite understand," Elsa smiled, putting the baroness at ease. When since had she become so cruel? Was her lack of sleep to blame? "To my grief, Lady Erondites, all that I read these days are tax proposals and harvest manifests. Nothing as exciting as the sciences, though my Scholar does keep me well versed on such fascinating topics."

Lady Erondites heaved a great sigh of relief, perhaps having expected a chilled wind to toss her away. "Your Scholar, Eugenides, I believe? I would be privileged to share words with such a man. Is it true that he was once magus to Apollos?"

"It is!" said Lady Mae, "He called King Apollos a fat old bastard!"

The two chortled together at the delightful trickle of blaspheme, hands linked. In the former rule, before the reign of King Eddis under High Queen Elsa, to speak ill of King Apollos would have resulted in any means of penalty. Elsa read once of a serving boy, no older than her dear niece and nephew, flogged with batons in the streets. He'd commented to his friend on the King's immensity, which had not been untrue.

King Eddis, though at times petulant and petty, was a distant cry from Apollos. A part of Elsa wouldn't mind to see that smug crook of a grin of his, with an insacred humor that surfaced only in the most inappropriate of affairs.

One of the Queen's Guard bent mutter into her ear, sharing with her his discomfort of their growing distance from the hunting party. With reluctance, Elsa agreed and suggested to the women that they rejoin the company.

It wasn't difficult to find the baron and his guests. The mud path was boot-trodden, while whoops and crows of victory echoed against the trees and rocks of the wood. The sun had not yet peaked, the mid-morning breath chilled in the way Elsa most adored. She remembered the ashen and desolate plateau of the Ashlands, the absolute misery it set on her. Attolia, however, yielded to the year's cycle. Autumn was here, and Elsa welcomed it gladly.

The path opened to yet another clearing, granting Elsa view of the party's kill. A female elk lay on its side, having just passed, a quarrel jutting from her neck. Elsa could see the puncture in the nape of the animal's neck where one of the hunters had finished the beast off. _For the gods forgive should the baron ever dirty his hands._

"My Queen!" Erondites rose a chalice to her, and his guests followed suit, "At last, a hefty kill. I regret to have dragged you to and fro this morning."

Elsa accepted the toast graciously, "A pleasure, Baron. How could I deny the wishes of my host?"

"If you must ask that question," said the baron, "You do not know the power you wield! Your Grace, I give you my thanks." Again, he raised his chalice. "To a fruitful hunt!"

A chalice of her own was just about thrusted into her hand by an anxious serving boy, no doubt some distant cousin of Erondites. Wine of rich red filled it, a line of it running down one side like blood freshly drawn. With the rest of the hunting party, Elsa drank, tasting cherry.

From the corner of her eye, she perceived Lady Maera. She had not drank from her chalice with the rest of the company. Rather, she cupped the drink with both hands, eyes on the elk. Lady Erondites placed a dramatic arm around Mae's shoulders, her own chalice held aloft.

"Such is life, sweet. Drink." She prompted, doing so herself.

Lady Maera obeyed with a subdued reluctance. As she did, her eyes locked with Elsa's and the High Queen was forced to avert as though she had not been staring.

On the trek back to the Lethe township, Elsa would spend it alone and off the path, stepping over the roots of trees and running her fingers over the smooth mosses. The captain of her guard would follow behind, but not closely, for he knew his charge to be one who savored the quiet.

 **. . .**

Light touched the silver of an airborne coin. It spun for a suspended second, then was caught between deft fingers. With a shorter flip the coin was tossed to the opposite hand, perfectly balanced on one knuckle.

 _Face or flower?_

A copper-studded lotus yawned up at the thief, who cringed and tucked the coin away. The last two flips had both yielded faces. Why the flower now?

Ah, well. Leave faces and flowers to the superstitious. Thieves made their own luck.

With the tourney underway, the manse was abuzz. The staff were presented with the nigh impossible task of accommodating the needs of the baron's guests who had arrived yesterday and the day before. They were accustomed to the odd visitor or two of the local gentry, but the tourney had garnered a widespread appraisal and interest. The High Queen herself would be in attendance, Erondites had been sure to scatter the news as swiftly as possible. No Steward of any House could have predicted the veritable flood of lords and ladies, and now the manse staff had almost doubled in size in a scrambling effort to adapt. Many new hires passed down the halls, most of them wonderstruck town girls who'd never before set foot in a room larger than the local temple. The thief would go unnoticed, at least. First, to acquire a costume…

A gaggle of tittering upper-class girls flittered down the hall, passing the thief by as though nobody were there. The thief watched their retreating forms longingly. _If everybody were as witless as that, my job would be made a thousand times easier. Though,_ thought the thief, slipping into the storage room, _I'm not a career thief for the ease of it._

The girl named Agatha emerged minutes after, brushing away the lint that had collected on the maid's uniform dress. Agatha was a lovely thing, pretty and simple as the flower the thief had flipped. Agatha liked animals, fended for her younger brother in an unspecific close-by village, and was blank as a slate. Everybody liked bashfully ardent Agatha wherever she went, and if she were new, they felt like they had always known her. Ever since the thief had devised her, Agatha had rapidly become one of the more useful cons.

With the tourney granting a suffice distraction, one that'd drawn away the High Queen's eye and the scrutiny of her Guard, navigating the House of Erondites should prove no more challenging than any other job.

Over the years the thief had learned the anatomy of royal estates, their universal similarities. The main corridors, while slightly varied in the cultural architectures, largely served the same purpose; long and straight, they led to each wing of the mansion. These corridors did not always go uninterrupted, as some might open up into a dining chamber or gallery. Though, instead of art, Erondites's galleries consisted of mounted animal heads.

They loomed over Agatha, frozen snarls yawning wide enough to take off her head. Most of the animals were familiar, having been hunted in the local woodlands by Erondites and his hunting parties. But some were exotic and strange, things Agatha had only read of in books or heard from gossiping lips.

A bear-like monstrosity with one large, glassy eye stationed in the middle of its brow. A two-headed lion, one head male and the other, female. A grimacing white tiger. They were all stunning, magnificent creatures, and Agatha was heavy-hearted as she left behind the museum of corpses.

There was a code that guides any thief in their endeavors. Although this thief had not the mind nor the patience for regulation, even if it were among criminals, the code came to mind, then, as the thief pre-peeked the bend.

 _All it takes are two wrong turns to get lost._

The thief had not yet managed to find the High Queen's apartment via the interior. It was not the top floor. If memory serves, the thief had dropped down two levels before catching the Queen's balcony. Stopping half way down the hall, the thief placed hands on hips and swiveled hesitantly. Was this the third floor? Or was that the floor below?

 _Godsdamn it,_ the thief pinched an aching brow, _focus._

But the picture of the High Queen's face, moon-pale with tears frozen over, had branded itself into the thief's mind. _So it's true,_ thought the thief, recalling the crawling frost and the halo of snowflakes, _all of that nonsense about her magic is true._

Despite the Imperium's rapid expansion, with word of the High Queen's power over Winter, the thief had not the time nor the inclination to pay it close enough attention. All the Imperium's rule had introduced to the criminal life was a higher threshold of risk on jobs. Even when the crime syndicates were scattered by the High Queen's garrisons, the thief had known little tangible change. The High Queen and her Winter had been an ineffectual concept of distant, mild interest.

 _Had been,_ was the thief's rueful thought, _you're in the bust of it now._

The sound of bootsteps snapped the thief from her reverie. If they had been a house guard's, whose cadences the thief knew well, the thief would have simply become Agatha and all would be well. But these footsteps were quicker than a guard's, and there was more than one. The thief could be recognized if the wrong person rounded the corner.

A knob was turned quietly, and then jostled as the thief realized it was locked. _Pull yourself together!_ The next door opened, and in the thief went, the door left slightly ajar.

Even though it was unnecessary to remain hidden, the thief's held her breath as two shadows approached and passed, murmurs accompanying them. They stopped just right of the door, and the hall hushed. The thief figured they must be securing their privacy. Finally, one of them continued.

"Not Demestrias."

"Change of plans?"

"Piter's Folly," said the first man, his voice smoke-rough, "From there, a ferry to the capital."

A rustling of paper. Perhaps a pocket map?

"Th'red line?"

"Mhm."

"That will take us through th'Woodlands," the second man was vexed, "Shit, w'not n'army. W'not rangers."

The first man said nothing. There was a faint clicking, followed by what must've been the striking of a match. The sound was too familiar to ignore. As greedleaf's intoxicating scent wafted into the thief's senses, her eyes widened. _The bloody captain? Why is it always the bloody captain?_

The smoking herb was a commonality throughout the continent, almost every lord in attendance smoked it regularly. It was the match that was familiar. The captain of the Queen's Guard had a habit of flicking it against what sounded like leather, rather than the rough side of the matchbox. It was unmistakably distinct.

"Hire a guide for the Woodlands. Somebody who knows them. And, Benji?"

"Sir?"

"Don't pay with crowns, again. Use the local coin. The Scholar has plenty of it."

A nod from Benji's shadow. "Aye, sir."

"And sell the riverboat."

"Aye."

"Now go."

Benji went, passing over the crack of light the door made. The thief withdrew, afraid to have been too close, and fumbled with a broom handle that had toppled in the retreat. The ensuing clatter might as well have been the collapsing of a tower.

A clamor of heavy steps and the closet door was wrenched open. Agatha flung her arms over her eyes and let out a startled _eep!_ The men in front of her loomed, each of them much taller than the maid. The younger one, who must've been Benji, frowned down at her, hand still on the door's knob.

"Think sh'heard us?"

The older man, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties, shot Benji a short glower before reaching for Agatha with one, long-fingered hand.

"No don't!" Agatha shrieked and tried batting his arm away, but the captain was as unmoved by her as an ox would be by a child. His grip, startlingly vice-like, drew Agatha from the closet and into the corridor by her forearm.

"Why were you hiding?" The captain was rough and brusque with her. Seeing him clearly for the first time, the thief in the back of Agatha's mind took in the grisly sight of him. A short, scruffy red beard, a mop of lighter red hair. He had a nose that'd been broken and reknitted crookedly. The man would've been handsome if not for that dangerous scowl that darkened a freckled face.

"I was- I was," Agatha swallowed a sob, took a breath, and sobbed some more, "I was-was scared!"

"Of us?" Benji was looking the maid up and down, now, moved by the image of a young, pretty, aggrieved maid. "W'not bad men."

"I don't kn-kn-know y-you," Agatha choked on her spit. G _odsdamn, too far?_ "Y-You're not house guards!"

"What did you hear?" Demanded the captain in a low, slow voice, his hold on the maid still firm.

"I dunno!"

"Young lady," rasped the captain, "Men like us don't take well to lies."

Benji interjected, "Ye're makin' 'er nervous, cap."

"Good."

"I'm serious," Benji pressed on, bumping the man's shoulder, "We'll get nothin' outta 'er this way."

The captain fixed Agatha with a skeptical eye, grunted, then let her go. Agatha was conscious to cradle her wrist in a way that was sympathetic, yet not overplayed. Many cons make the mistake of playing too far into their identities, while the thief learned that subtleties were far more convincing. It was like a play, but the stage was everywhere she stood, and the props were always deadly.

"What's y'name?" Benji's accent wasn't simply Southern Isles, it was far southern, originating all the way from Gaard. Like his captain, he wore no uniform, the only visible weapon a bastard sword held in one hand, belt wrapped around the scabbard. He looked freshly showered. Smelled it, too.

"Agatha," said the thief, "and you?"

Benji smiled the kind, honest sort. "Benjimand Göring, though m'colleagues call m'Benji. Tell m'Agatha, why'd'ye'ide?"

His accent was a challenge to follow with the rapid pace he spoke, some words were a verbal mesh. Agatha stared blankly, as the thief figured she had no experience with such a foreign dialogue, even if he did speak Common.

Understanding her confusion and unperturbed by it, Benji repeated himself with careful enunciation. "Why did ye hide, lass?"

Agatha inhaled long and deep, wringing hands calloused from years of hanging from eaves and gables. "I'm-I'm a new hire, sir. I don't know the manse well and I'm afraid I'm lost. When I heard you and your friend coming down the hall, I panicked! I know I'm not supposed to be here." Tears threatened, "Oh, the steward will have me switched if he finds out!"

"What job were you given?" This time, the brooding captain spoke, much of the ice in his voice receding.

"I was told by one of the maid's that the steward wanted me to dust every gas lamp in the manse," said Agatha, "But I can't find none! I don't even know what they look like."

Benji and the captain shared a glance. The manse, while modern in some aspects, had no gas lamps. Clearly this poor maid was the victim of some staff razzing.

"Ye're lost?" Asked Benji. When Agatha nodded, he reached out to pat her shoulder, "see that s'okay, but it's very important that yeh be honest wit'us."

Again, Agatha nodded.

"Good lass. So...?"

With big eyes just shy of tears, the maid looked from Benji to the captain, and back to Benji again. "I heard somethin' 'bout Demestrias. You thought you was goin', but now you ain't?"

"This time of th'year makes travel tricky," said Benj, offering a grin, "What else?"

"Sell a boat?"

A shrug from the Queen's guard, "Rickety old thing. Why keep it when w'could make coin?"

"Exactly!" Cried Agatha, pointing, "Smart."

"Hold," the captain interceded, blocking Benji from her view to stare the thief down. Did this man ever smile? He searched her face for a moment, as though a faint recognition had connected. The thief's heart began to hammer, the nape of her neck tingling. _Gods, no. I've been so careful._

"Do you know who we are?"

The maid shook her head.

"Try me."

Agatha glanced between the two of them again, the thief's mind behind her false identity racing. "My guess? Hired thugs," she applied a sort of conspiratorial voice, "You's have the looks. All big and ugly and no uniforms."

"Oi," Benji protested somewhere behind the captain.

"Don't worry," said Agatha, "I won't tell, promise! I've no business with who whatever lord hires to do his dirty work!"

Together, Benji and the captain leaned back, a disbelieving grin breaking over the former's face. _They think Agatha's an idiot,_ thought the thief, _Good. How could she know you're Queen's Guard?_

With a snort and a mild grunt, the captain clapped Benji on the shoulder and departed down the hall, evidently deeming this meek little creature no longer worth his time. Just before he was beyond hearing, he began to hum the very same northern tune he had the night before.

The thief's knees felt so weak they nearly wobbled under her. _Your gambits, kid,_ she could hear her mentor's voice in her head, _Will be the death of you._

Benji began untying the belt from around his sword's scabbard and slid it through the loopholes in his trousers, fixing the bastard to his hip. It was an odd clash, the thief decided, seeing a man dressed in the current fashions, yet wearing an old sword like he's some storybook knight. Most men these days enjoyed their rapiers and flintlocks.

"Pard'n milady here," Benji touched the sword's pommel, "She does most'f th'maids a good fright."

"I'm not frightened,' said the thief, "I think it's interesting."

"Eh?" Benji blinked, though not displeased by the comment, "Well, thank ye."

 _Much friendlier than that captain fellow. This will be easy, poor guy._

Tucking his thumb under his suspenders, Benji gave her a nod, flashed a charming smile, and turned on his booted heels. "Goodday, l-,"

"Wait!" Agatha's hand shot out to take his arm, who stopped to peer at her quizzically. "Wait," she said again, softer this time.

"... Yes?"

"I'd another job that I didn't get to start," said Agatha, still holding his arm, "The maid who had me clean them invisible gas lamps took me b'fore I could."

"And this job was…"

She couldn't very well say the High Queen's quarters. Even if Benjimand was a less suspicious man than his captain, he'd surely catch on if Agatha was that direct. No, all the thief needed was to get close. _When all else fails,_ thought the thief, _think vertically._

"I was to clean Ser Aristogiton's quarters," said Agatha, "the duelist?"

"By yer lonesome?"

Agatha shrugged helplessly. "It's a job, sir."

Benji uttered an amused snort, "It sore is, lass. I know th'way, should I escort ye?"

"Would you?"

"Good lass," he patted the hand that held his upper arm, "Y'seem a nice girl who's had a hard time of it. It'd be m'pleasure, as me late ma and fa would have me say, Shepherdess rest them."

Utterly charmed, Agatha took his arm with her other hand so that her fingers laced, "You hardly seem a thug, now. Was I wrong?"

"Oh, not s'far off," chuckled Benji, "I'm meanest as they come."

It was strange to the thief how much she enjoyed the Queen Guard's company. He chatted blithely, without second meanings wormed between his sentences, without hints for a desire of something more than the words exchanged. Benji simply guided her through the manse as though he were raised in it, navigating the halls with an enviable memory. When they reached the duelist's antechamber door, the thief was almost disappointed to have their conversations cut short. Affable company was a paucity in her line of work.

Alas, if Benjimand Göring knew that Agatha was, in fact, a con, he'd surely halve her with that wicked blade.

When he departed with the tip of an invisible cap, the thief opened her palm to finger the wristwatch he'd been wearing. _Weird,_ mused the thief, running her thumb over it's glass face, _these things get smaller every year._

 **. . .**

Attolian attires were considered scant in some circles, but the thief privately applauded them in their lack of modesty. The sleek and sometimes sheer dresses allowed effortless movement, while the female fashions in neighboring countries contrasted steeply with their layers. All she had to do was pray that none of the tourney spectors decided to glance skyward and she, along with her dignity, would be in tact.

The climb would be short compared to others. Aristogiton's quarters were stationed just below the High Queen's, and both were balconied. In most cases the climb would have been made simpler if there hadn't been any balconies at all, if not for the gutter pipe that vertically spanned them both.

The thief ran light fingertips over the corroding metal of the pipe, recalling how she'd slipped and fell from it just the night before. The frost, the thief realized, had not been of the night's making, but the High Queen's. Though how and why, well, only the gods could say.

 _Never revisit a purchase that had already failed you once._ Another line from the guild's codex. In this case, another line to ignore.

The climb was over in less than a minute. Far below the thief could hear roars from the tourney's audiences as a champion overcame his opponent. Stopping at the balcony railing, the thief perched atop it, thighs crossed and hands holding the horizontal bar.

Beyond the Lethe township shone calm and confident Seperchia, her skin aglimmer under the noon sun. The township itself, though not terribly large, was a maze of dirt roads and rustic structures. It was all close to vacant, the majority of Lethe's populace swarming the tourney grounds as they cheered and chanted. Below—far below—swordsmen were locked in a flaunting exchange. Having been in, won some, and survived a number of skirmishes, the thief scoffed down at the duelists. Fights, real fights, were never so elegant and effortless. These men were dancers, not fighters.

The thief craned her neck in an effort to distinguish the High Queen. Shoulders slumped with disappointment; the royal platforms were shielded from the winds and sun and, therefore, her view. Even if the High Queen had been made her victim soon-to-be, it was impossible to overlook the otherworldly presence of the monarch. The _Monarch. I'm about to rob the most powerful woman in the world._ The thief slipped from the railing, scoffing again, this time at her own audacity, _this will either be the most brilliant stunt of your career, or the one that ends it._

The chamber inside was all dark woods and colors of earth, a shared theme throughout the manse. The only evidence that the quarters had been occupied were the papers stacked upon the escritoire. Fingers ran over the face of a standing wardrobe, tracing the etched depictions of dancing satyrs and stoic centaurs. The latch, of course, was locked. Would the Crown of Imperium, the prime symbol of power in the continent, even be stored in the baron's guest room wardrobe? With darting eyes trained for the dark, the thief noted the sparse furniture, the lack of personal belongings. Dread began to seep into the thief's chest. _No._

Wooden wheels rolled in their metal brackets as the thief jerked out the drawers of the vanity. Taking a hairpin, she returned to the wardrobe, twisting the pin into a crude lockpick. _Please._ It took two attempts to yield the lock, the first to find the small lever and the second to manipulate it. Mahogany doors swung on well-oiled hinges. So hard did the thief's heart hammer that she felt it in her hands as she shoved aside heavy woolen coats, hideous floral dresses, and long, mocking nightgowns. She stopped when her search revealed a small wooden chest, found sitting at the back of the wardrobe. A mad hope fluttered in her stomach as the thief took the chest and shook it. _Empty._

Hope morphed to a climbing, childish frustration. How could she have thought the Crown would be stored in the Queen's guest quarters? Excitement and impatience had clouded her judgement, prodding her to act without consideration. But what other options were there? The crown could not very well be all the way back in Blys, could it? It must be, _must be_ with the High Queen. As the thief resumed her search of the chamber, her suspicions became apparent.

 _You're too desperate. You're not_ thinking. _The Crown is_ not here.

The thief leaned against the desk, her head spinning by her self-conceived stupidity. When had all sense of thought abandoned her?

Her thumb touched something wet on the desktop. Huffing with irritation the thief raised her hand to shake off the paper it was stuck to. When her efforts proved futile, she tore it off in one sharp movement, forcing herself to keep from simply tossing the page. She may be stooped in failure, dipped and drowned in her own self-loathing, but to abandon continuity as well would only further shovel the grave.

The page was replaced gently as the thief inhaled and exhaled long, slow breaths, clearing her head and reacquainting herself with careful thought. Taking the top and bottom of the page, the thief folded it so that the ends met and the broken seal was rejoined. The Golden Crocus of Arendelle gaped up at her in a state of deformed wax. A newfound thrill rushed through the thief.

 _Loving Sister,_

 _After hearing your fears, I am overjoyed that you overcame them and secured victory. I have so many questions about the Blightlanders! Is it true that they breathe fire? No, that would be silly. That is silly, isn't it? I shall preserve my questions for when we next meet, which, I hope, will be very soon._

 _By all accounts, I should hope my duties will lessen after the Festival. If they do, I will bring the family and we will all visit you in Blys. Perhaps I can help you with the trouble of integration? Quoting myself, two queens are better than one, and it would be lovely to put our heads together again, if not to help ease the burden from your shoulders._

The thief furrowed her brow. Integration? And what was this of those barbarians from the east?

 _Speaking of burdens, I know your company will help soothe mine. Kristoff's business ventures grow longer with each year as his enterprise expands. I am happy for him and the life he's been able to lead without extracting any funds from the royal treasury, as we both have offered, but my love for him has never waned, and I miss his weight in my bed._

 _Sigrid, too, grows to miss her papa. They get on very well, and his absences have made her testy, fiery, even, of late. As for Oliver, the boy is detached, Elsa. I cannot place where his head goes half the time. He walks the palace halls and grounds abstracted as a shade. His nightmares have returned, as have the bags under his eyes, though he neglects to confide in me. More than once I have caught him gazing in horror at nothing, and I've been forced to shake him from these unexplainable stupors. Not for the first time I begin to doubt Grand Pabbie, when he told us that he 'cannot fix what is not broken'. Something is off about my boy, Elsa, and it keeps me up at night._

 _They both grow by the day, and soon they will be young man and woman, no longer boy and girl. I dread that day, and I selfishly cling to every fleeting moment I might have with them._

 _Elsa, you should never apologize to me for putting to ink your worries. I am here, always and forever, even if there are hundreds of miles between us. The whole world could be against you, and I would stand at your side and hold your hand and face our enemies. Say the word, sister, and I will be there. No court conspiracy may put the Frodes to heel._

 _I mean it, Elsa. I do, and you know it._

 _I love you. I miss you._

 _Anna,_

The thief flattened the page against the desktop, thumbing its corner thoughtfully. If this had contained anything worthwhile, the letter would have gone for quite the pretty coin for whatever enemies were left of Imperium. Alas, it seemed a simple domestic letter between sisters, though that bit in the beginning was interesting. Was it common knowledge that the Imperium was bracing itself for integration? If so, it'd gone by the thief. Most politics did, by that matter.

With a dismissing sniff, the thief glanced over the page next to the letter. All that was on it were a scattering cluster of words, with a drying blotch of ink smearing a large portion of the paper. There was an angry zig-zagging of ink at the bottom when the High Queen had evidently disregarded this rough draft of a reply.

At the top of the escritoire were the rest of the High Queen's messages, and the thief would have dismissed them too if not for the slender slip of paper resting on the stack.

 _My Queen,_

 _I regret to inform you that more bread may be required for our next meal. Whether or not jam is necessary, however, remains to be s-_

From the antechamber the clamor of voices and footsteps could be heard. A second later, the door swung open. The figure of a young woman was silhouetted in the door, backlit by torchlight that shafted across the floorboards of the chamber.

Isolde frowned as she felt the draft that exhaled through the room, swearing she had closed and latched the balcony door that was now very much open.

"A moment, Gretchen," she called out to whoever stood just screened from view. High heels clicked against the wooden panels as one of the High Queen's personal attendants crossed the dim space, taking the door by its latch and, after closing it, tugged to be sure it would remain that way.

"Izzie?" Called who must've been Gretchen from the antechamber.

"Yes?" The attendant stopped by the escritoire to tidy up the tipped inkpot, taking the stained sheet of paper and crumpled it in her fist.

"Be sure to lock the bathing chamber."

"What if Her Grace wants a wash in the morning?"

"Viggo tells me she wants to leave today," said Gretchen, "After the duels end and before the feasts begin."

A pause from the younger attendant as she ran the back of her hand over a weathered brow. "The sooner this journey ends the better I am for it."

A wry note touched Gretchen's voice. "Do you tire of Hanna's riddle games?"

Taking a ring of brass keys, Isolde began sorting through them. "Oh, the riddles are fine. It's her ceaseless singing that irks me."

"We'll warm up to the girl."

"I'm sure." Isolde settled on one indistinct key and tried the bathing chamber's lock, but the knob held fast. "Which one was for the bathing chamber again? They all look the same."

More high heels, these belonging to a plump woman, neither fat nor thin, bearing a stack of folded clothes under one arm. She flicked a few keys around the ring until she found the one that satisfied her. "Try that one."

When the door was finally locked, Gretchen helped Isolde take the High Queen's papers from the escritoire and bind them together with snug leather cords. Though the letter with the Golden Crocus was carefully folded and pushed into an envelope. They spoke of what they saw of the tourney, Isolde admitting her fancy for one of the up-and-coming duelists fresh from the fencing post. Her friend laughed, though not derisively, and linked their arms.

A grumble from the antechamber, followed by a man's baritone. "You ladies about done?"

"Oh, hush it, you," said Gretchen, "Attending the High Queen's needs is a delicate process."

Isolde inefficiently muffled a guffaw.

"Oi." Unamused, the man's form swallowed the doorway, his shoulders nearly brushing its threshold. "Wrap it up."

Before they left, Isolde tugged on Gretchen. "Does the staff want the canopy left drawn like that?"

Gretchen moaned, "Oh, Izzie dear, leave it. These are not the royal chambers. These are the guest quarters of a quaint barony. Leave the fussy-work to it's own servants."

 _That sounds like a terrific idea,_ thought the thief, _please do that._ She could see the shapes of the women through the canopies behind which she laid, the fabrics shifting and rippling with the remnants of the outdoor breezes. If she were discovered, she'd have to find a way to incapacitate the man, doubtless one of the Queen's Guard, in an effort to safely escape. She could lure him into the room, perhaps by threatening one of the attendants. A pot of ink in the eyes should suffice, if the need comes to it.

But the one named Isolde conceded to her friend, returning to the antechamber with what was left of the High Queen's belongings.

 _No Crown. Not even any mention of it._ The High Queen could not be traveling without it. Where else could it be, but with the High Queen and her closest, most trusted subjects?

"There must be some sort of travel wardrobe," the thief whispered aloud to herself, "with the attendants."

Rolling onto her back, with the soft mattress beneath, the thief stared up at the grey of the ceiling. Tears of frustration stirred, and she covered her face as though trying to hide them from herself.

 _You're so close. You are so so close._

The thief sat up, wiping her face with a renewed resolve. Giving up now would be an insult to her mentor. Her opportunity in Lethe had passed, but if there was one thing she'd learned in the business of thieves and liars: patience was paramount. She'd slipped here, made a fool of herself in her own reckless nature. But it was not too late to correct herself. Another opportunity would present itself, perhaps more than one.

On top of it all, she knew the High Queen's route: Elsa Frode was returning to Blys after close to a month of her absence. Blys the thief was familiar with. It had once been the centrepoint of her operations. She knew that damn city-island like the back of her eyelids, navigating it would be easy as skipping stones.

The more the thief mulled it over, the more hope filled her until she were brimming with it. Half a plan had already begun to form. She'd passed into the Pale Keep more than once in the span of her career. Never made it to the royal halls, mind, but she had stolen enough petty goods from the councilmen who reside there to fill a trove.

 _First step,_ thought the thief, brushing aside the canopy, _don't fall asleep in this ridiculously comfortable bed._

 **. . .**

Come evening, the dueling tourney resulted in a climactic end, with Ser Aristogiton emerging, to nobody's surprise, as the champion. The feasting halls were lit, and the gentry dined and conversed as wine loosened their tongues. On that night scandals would be revealed, and there would be no shortage of dried olives or amorous company. In the taverns of Lethe, whose firelight shafted across her dirt roads, musicians debuted their accounts of the tourney. There, mugs clashed, and the masses sang along festively to the satirical, and sometimes insacred, lyrics derived by the witty and whimsical singers.

In the midst of it all, the High Queen of Imperium made her unannounced departure.

Most of the Queen's Guard were told there, on the spot, by their captain of the sudden egress, and they would follow without question or complaint. They stepped from their rooms in response to their captain's single knock, toting their weapons and rubbing the sleep from their eyes as they followed him down the halls. The attendants were collected next, some of them expecting, some of them not.

They waited for the High Queen in the courtyard.

"Where is Her Grace?" One guard asked his captain.

Viggo took a matchbox from under his jacket, dragging one match against the leather of his bandolier and lighting his pipe. Around the sparking fire and pluming smoke, he made a noncommittal sound. "Retrieving the Scholar."

A small fist, snow-white and just as cold, knocked on the mahogany door. Beyond the door, Elsa could hear the indiscreet roamings of Eugenides as he approached and, after a pausing breath, admitted his Queen.

He was a disheveled sight, silver hair standing in all directions. His eyes were red from lack of sleep, and his right hand trembled as it held the threshold.

"My Queen." He greeted.

"My Scholar," said Elsa. She reached out to him and took his chin in her hand. At her touch he became still as the sculptures that stood in the courtyards of the Pale Keep. "Before we go, I need something from you."

Gen's gaze did not waver, did not break from the endless icy sea of his Queen's eyes.

"I need your absolute, unquestioned faith, Eugenides," Elsa's words were soft, impassioned. "That Imperium shall prevail."

Silence from the Scholar. He teetered, and with the hand that shook, took Elsa's wrist and gently withdrew her grasp of his jaw. Grey eyes closed, lips ghosting over silent prayers. Without opening them, he spoke.

"Then, for the first time, I fear I have failed you, My Queen."

"And so you declare yourself my enemy?" The High Queen demanded of her Scholar.

The Scholar opened his eyes in surprise, sputtered, and broke into a startled laugh. The mirth rolled from deep inside of him, as though it had sought escape for years. "No, My Queen!" He cried, "Rather, I am brave enough to declare myself your friend. But in this aspect I have failed you, and I shall fail you again, and once again, if only to reveal to you the fallacies of your philosophy. The same philosophy that had spurred past empires to their historic demise."

"The emperors and empresses of the past had been tyrants, who broke their people and burned their enemies without compromise." Said the High Queen, her voice becoming edged. "What have I done but seek every possible compromise? Have I not yet to advance upon a country unprovoked? Have I not fed the starving, quenched the thirsty, and saved the impoverished?"

All at once she appeared to tower over him, an untamed pride emanating from her like the bitter winds she commanded, altogether changed, larger, taller, colder, darker. Her arms outspread, Elsa glared down at the scholar as though he were not but the muck underfoot.

" _Have I not been a merciful god?_ "

Eugenides halted in horror of the High Queen's words, then he reared on her, the first sense of his rage revealed. "So, a god you are now? Shall I now stoop below your knees? Shall I kiss your feet and grovel sweet beggings of forgiveness? Shall I now agree to every word you spout? Shall I sacrifice my firstborn in Your Name, slit my wrists and vow my blood to Your Cause, and swear an infinite string of oaths that would put the pagan zealots to shame?

"My Queen," the Scholar was flushed with his anger, his stare holding hers unrelenting, "My _Queen_! Know thyself!"

It seemed as though, for a moment, that Elsa might strike the old Scholar. Her hand rose, arm trembling and face twisting into a hideous wrath that did not belong there. But then she paused, turning her head to look up at the raised hand, whose fingers were arched like talons. The hand slowly relaxed, and when Elsa looked back at her Scholar, a familiar awareness was returned to her once vacant eyes. Before Gen and under the sound of his voice, the High Queen deflated. Once again she was a slim and pale woman, pristine and delicate. A disoriented anguish was painted over her features, and she reeled as exhaustion overcame her. Eugenides reached out to take her arms and steady his Queen, anger replaced with concern. "Elsa?"

"Forgive me, Eugenides," Elsa allowed herself to lean into his grasp, the warmth of him comforting, "I d- I don't know who that was."

The Scholar searched her face for any remnant of the dispassionate deity that had been portrayed there. It had been like looking into the eyes of Winter itself. But now all he saw was a worn and torn young woman, just barely in her thirties, with the weight of a continent on her porcelain shoulders. "Neither do I." He said at last.

They stayed that way for some time, in the torchlit halls of Erondites. No guard passed, no heads peaked from rooms to question the outbreak of shouts. It was almost surreal, how alone they were. Even two floors up, they could hear the music of the feast.

"What am I doing wrong, Gen?" asked the Queen, lifting her head to look the Scholar in his weathered and aged face.

"I am not certain," said Eugenides, choosing his words carefully, "that it is you."

"There are times I wish I never left Arendelle," said Elsa, so faint were her words they could have been a reflection, "I could have left well enough alone. I almost did." She forced herself to keep from returning to those dark days, the wrath that had festered and clawed inside of her, howling for release. It had been a dubious time, for all but one thing.

She felt her Scholar shift. He pulled away. "A sight to behold, no?"

Elsa glanced back up at him in wordless questioning, then followed his gaze down the hall. For a fleeting second all thought escaped Elsa as though sucked from her by a god's inhale.

There, a ways down the hall, stood small and shy Lady Maera, a yellow silk dress hugging the sweet slopes and curves of her. Her amber-brown eyes were downcast, abashed to have intruded on something so private. Even in those high heels, Elsa had not heard her approach.

"Lady Mae," Elsa breathed the young woman's name, "Your betrothed will mourn your absence."

"I believe the duelist will survive without me for a minute or two," said Lady Mae, lacing her fingers behind her back as she approached. Her diffidence reminded Elsa of a doe, as did the lady's grace. "He'd scarcely spared me a glance all evening. I think he is scared of me." She neared still, "I noticed _your_ absence, however, and mourned that."

Eugenides looked from the High Queen to the Lady Mae, then back to the High Queen. Coughing into his hand, he excuse himself to pack for their departure.

Lady Mae watched him go, tilting her head in an almost vulpine manner. "Departure?"

"Tonight we make for Blys." Why did she feel so sheepish?

"Oh," said Lady Mae, disappointment plain on her lovely features, "So soon? Can you not wait until the morning, celebrate the tourney and festival with the Attolians?"

Elsa smiled, "Ah, to tempt me with such public affairs would be in vain, Lady Mae."

An excruciating silence yawned between them. Elsa could hear the ministrations of her scholar beyond the doors as he gathered his belongings.

At length, Lady Mae stepped closer so that she was hardly an arm's stretch away. "I regret the time we've shared has been so scant."

"Is this a farewell, Lady Mae?"

With a helpless shrug, she said, "I am to marry in Demestrias."

"Why?" The High Queen asked, "Are there not temples of Hephest in Blys?"

"My betrothed is set on Demestrias," Lady Mae rose her hands, shaking her head.

"But is he so?" said the High Queen, "Imagine it. A holiday in the capital of Imperium, the largest city in the continent. The churning waves of the Borvers. Have you seen the cobblestoned streets, the arching bridges? Some of the roads are rivers, navigated by boats." Her voice became wistful, "There are nights I escape the Pale Keep just to watch the lanterns peer through the bay's mists, like flaming stars come to earth. I can hear the singing of sea-weary sailors as they unwind in the portside taverns. The Bells of the church houses, the laughter of children out to roam much too late, the barking of a baker's dog."

Slowly, a smile played over Lady Mae's lips. She wrung her hands, still unsure

"I can smell the bread," Elsa swayed, intoxicated by her own memories, "It plays on the wind with countless other scents. Molten iron of the smithies, the lavender and rose of tailor shops, coffee from the cafes, fresh flayed meat, sea-salt, greedleaf, smoked fish. They twine together all at once, a cacophony you can taste. Have you not known anything like that, Lady Mae?"

The lady's face contorted into that of a forlorn pining. "All I know is the company of my sisters, the food of my pantry, the flowers of my garden, and the books of my magus's study." she held her elbows, "Though it's not lost on me the fortune I'm afforded. Most Zellucian girls have known far worse than I ever have." She wrung her wrists. An action, Elsa thought, that was decidedly endearing.

"And the smells?" Her nose upturned, "Molding cheeses, moth dust, the paper mill just over the hill, and honeysuckle." She sighed, "Your Grace, I've become so, so weary of honeysuckle."

"Come to Blys, and you won't smell another paper mill or honeysuckle ever again."

"I could… I think, negotiate with my betrothed."

"Tell him you have the official Invitation of the High Queen," said Elsa, "That you and he will be housed in the halls of the Pale Keep, in the royal apartments."

A quirk of Lady Mae's lips told tales of mischief. "Close to you, perhaps?"

"Indeed," said the High Queen, just barely concealing her elation, "Close to me."

The next pause they shared. It belonged to both of them.

 **Chapter Index**

 **Demophile** \- Angel of the Hunt and Harvest in Attolian theology. She is among the most popular of House Angels, alongside Hephest and Mira.

 **The Shepherdess -** The Goddess of the monothiestic Southern Isles and Gaard. She's believed to be wholly benevolent, who guides her followers from birth to the Gracelands that await them after death.

 **The Queen's Guard -** The royal Guard of the High Queen, made out of a close-knit company of former, strangely loyal mercenaries.

 **Character Index**

 **Benjimand Göring** \- First lieutenant of the Queen's Guard.

 **Gretchen Manhel -** The High Queen's longest-standing attendant.

 **Hanna Gretels** \- The self-declared "songbird" of the royal attendants.

 **Mentioned Geography**

 **Bay of Borvers** \- The wide and large sea-bay that is home to the southern isles. It's named after the small port-city that spans the bay's shores.

 **Piter's Folly (** Peter's Folly **)** \- A small port-town separated from the Borvers, with it's own governor.


End file.
